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ZR WINS 





i 


% 



































ON THE OUTER EDGE OF IT ALL HOVERED THE ZR-5 ! 


m . 


lllf 








■BNI 


[page 260 ] 







ZR WINS 


BY 

FITZHUGH pREEN 

AUTHOR OF “THE MYSTERY OF THE ERIK,” ETC. 



D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

NEW YORK : : 1924 : : LONDON 




COPYRIGHT, I 924 , BY 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


JUL 21*24 

C1A801055 

su e 



The characters in this hook are purely 
fictional, and in no way refer to living persons . 



CONTENTS 


I. 

The Trail Grows Hot. 

i 

II. 

The World's Last Riddle .... 

i 3 

III. 

A Warning. 

24 

IV. 

The First Disaster. 

35 

V. 

The Enemy Strikes. 

44 

VI. 

Foul Play . 

52 

VII. 

Shanghaied !. 

60 

VIII. 

Toward the Pole. 

68 

IX. 

A Close Shave. 

77 

X. 

Helpless. 

86 

XI. 

Voices in the Night. 

95 

XII. 

Land! . 

104 

XIII. 

A Desperate Plan. 

110 

XIV. 

Across the Floes. 

119 

XV. 

The Last Dash. 

125 

XVI. 

Footprints! . 

135 

XVII. 

The Lost Tribe. 

142 

XVIII. 

The Cataclysm. 

151 

XIX. 

Kristina. 

159 









CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

XX. 

Into the Cavern 



PAGE 

. 169 

XXI. 

Kristina’s Fear . 



. 177 

XXII. 

Mammoths! .... 



• 185 

XXIII. 

Lake Mystery . 



• 195 

XXIV. 

On the Brink . 



. 201 

XXV. 

Into the Fire . 



. 207 

XXVI. 

To Thwart a Rogue . 




XXVII. 

The Avalanche 

. 

• 

. 225 

XXVIII. 

Threats . . . . . 



• 230 

XXIX. 

Escape. 



• 238 

XXX. 

Cornered. 



. 244 

XXXI. 

The Lizards .... 



. 250 

XXXII. 

Joan. 



• 255 

XXXIII. 

ZR Wins! .... 



. 260 

















ZR WINS 



ZR WINS! 


CHAPTER I 

THE TRAIL GROWS HOT 

A TAXICAB approached the Army and Navy Club 
at dangerous speed. With sudden clank and 
squeak it came to an abrupt stop opposite the digni¬ 
fied main entrance. Out sprang a young man very sun¬ 
burned, vastly hurried, and undeniably handsome in his 
gold-striped, brass-buttoned naval uniform and nautical 
cap worn rakishly a bit back and to one side on his 
close-cropped head. 

“Wait!” he commanded sharply to the driver, and in 
two leaps was across the pavement. Just inside he col¬ 
lided with a major general. Endeavoring to apologize 
without delaying his precipitous rush, he stepped on a 
retired rear admiral’s favorite corn. 

“Anything for Eppley—Bliss Eppley?” he threw at the 
desk clerk, and began drumming with nervous knuckles 
upon the glass cigar counter. 

“Lieutenant Eppley, sir?” The clerk held out a long 
official-looking letter. 

“Righto!” 

He seized the envelope, tore one end off with a vicious 
jerk, and read: 


ZR WINS! 


State Department, 
Washington, D. C. 

April 29, 1924 . 

Lieutenant Bliss Eppley, U. S. N. 

Army and Navy Club, Washington, D. C. 

Sir: 

The Secretary of State has referred your proposal to 
me for reply. You must realize that the amazing char¬ 
acter of what you suggest compels us to act very con¬ 
servatively. However, after examining your credentials, 
we are disposed to accept your offer and will lend what 
assistance we can. 

The Secretary has further asked me to remind you of 
the risk you are running in acting over the heads of Navy 
Department officials. 

If you will call at my office in the State Department 
before noon to-day I will give you your instructions. 

Wishing you success in your venture, I remain. 
Cordially yours, 

R. F. Y. Manning, 

For the Secretary of State. 

The young officer pushed his cap back with a sudden 
gesture of relief. “They bit, anyway,” he muttered. 
“Something’s bound to fall now!” He spun on his heel. 
“Here, boy, tell that taxi of mine I’ll be out in three 
minutes.” Not waiting for the elevator, he dashed to the 
stairs and disappeared up them three at a time. 

Three minutes and ten seconds later Lieutenant Eppley 
galloped down the same stairs four at a time. His uni¬ 
form had been replaced by a becoming civilian suit that 
brought out the clean lines of his well-knit figure. 

He entered the labyrinth of the State Department’s 
interminable corridors with almost a sense of reverence. 
The keen-eyed, quiet-spoken man to whom his card soon 

2 



THE TRAIL GROWS HOT 


brought him, accentuated his sense of the profound sig¬ 
nificance of this vital branch of the government. 

“Sit down, Mr. Eppley.” So low-pitched was the voice 
that Bliss found himself wondering involuntarily if the 
speaker were afraid of being overheard. 

Pointedly there was no reference to circumstances lead¬ 
ing up to the interview. “You are to call at the Richmond 
Hotel,” said the official simply, “and ask for a room in the 
name of Waverly. You must be there by noon and reg¬ 
ister under that name.” 

“Should I be armed, sir?” queried Bliss. 

A faint smile crossed the grave face before him. 

“Scarcely, Mr. Eppley. When the State Department 
once decides to use an outsider like yourself, no stone is 
left unturned to assure both his safety and his success. 
While you are, of course, in the Navy, we look upon you 
for the time being only as a patriotic citizen who is willing 
to risk his professional reputation for the larger interests 
of his country.” 

A little glow of pleasure stole over Bliss. 

“Now that the Navy has definitely decided to send its 
new airship on a trip of scientific exploration across the 
north polar regions, we hope that you may go along. If 
you don’t, we plan to solicit the Department’s specific aid 
in thwarting the villainy afoot, the existence of which you 
have so cleverly discovered. But such a course is not 
desirable.” 

“Too much publicity?” 

“No, not exactly that. Simply we prefer that one per¬ 
son, such as yourself, act as our confidential man on the 
case. Infinite red tape will be thus avoided; and the 
chance of our moves being found out will be greatly 
reduced. In no sense will you be disloyal to your service; 
but, rather, doing your duty more fully than would other¬ 
wise be possible. Learn what you can from the secret 
3 



ZR WINS! 


meeting this morning. Persuade naval authorities to enlist 
your aid if you are able. And report in full to us as 
progress is made.” 

“But at the hotel, sir. How—?” 

The other held up his hand. “I was coming to that. 
In our service you will find yourself called upon to do 
things in a strange way. Secrecy means so much. We 
might have sent one of our own agents to-day. But we 
thought you would be better prepared if you yourself 
could overhear the bargaining we believe will take place at 
the Richmond.” 

“Bargaining, as I suggested?” 

“Exactly. So we have secured a room. Inside it you 
will find a heater grating near the floor on one wall. 
Unscrew this and follow your nose. I shall have a man 
in the lobby. But upstairs you will have to look out for 
yourself.” 

Thus ended the interview. 

As he sped toward the hotel, Bliss Eppley’s mind 
reviewed swiftly the events that had brought him to the 
very threshold of success he so long had pictured. He 
recalled the first flash of his great idea when, five years 
before, during a European cruise, he had stood in the 
museum at Bergen and the attendant had pointed out a 
yellow parchment in the specimen case, saying in awed 
tones: 

“The last sign, sir. The very last of them. Maybe 
they died. Maybe they didn't. Maybe their story is 
not yet done.” 

“You mean—?” Bliss had asked him wonderingly. 

“That perhaps somewhere they still live. But I am 
an old man, sir. And we old ’uns have queer notions. 
Now, in this next case. . . .” 

But a train of thought had been awakened. The parch¬ 
ment was an ancient receipt for oil. The oil had been 

4 



THE TRAIL GROWS HOT 


sent from Greenland in the fifteenth century. This oil 
had been part of the trade between Norway and her 
colonies in South Greenland. 

Swiftly Bliss recalled the tragic facts of that great his¬ 
torical riddle: how the early colonies had prospered; how 
war and plague had swept Europe; how Norway had 
abandoned her northern children to their fate; how two 
hundred years later Greenland had been rediscovered and 
no sign found of the once prosperous settlements. 

And now the old museum attendant’s half-prophetic 
words: “Maybe they died. Maybe they didn't. Maybe 
their story is not yet done. Perhaps somewhere they still 
live. . . .” 

Like a hound a-trail Bliss sprang after the scent. 
Scientists declared to him that land might lie north in 
the vast unexplored area of the Polar Sea above Alaska. 
Travelers from the frozen wilderness told him of Eskimo 
traditions indicating that the vanished Norsemen had not 
suffered and died at all, but had migrated to another hap¬ 
pier country to the north and west of Greenland. 

“Could this legendary country lie in that enormous un¬ 
known space near the Pole which no man yet has entered?’’ 
Bliss asked himself again and again. 

The question stung him into a fever of curiosity. Day 
and night the riddle seared his thoughts. 

From the museum in Bergen he had hurried to the 
national archives. By virtue of his position as a visiting 
naval officer he had been permitted access to musty vaults, 
to records centuries old, to the opinions and surmises of 
men who had made life studies of the very sort of theory 
that had suddenly gripped his own excited mind and had 
suggested finding in the Polar Sea a colony lost for five 
whole centuries. 

Then had come the other trail: War’s terrible after- 
math, all the fearful intensity of human avarice and 

5 



ZR WINS! 


hatred. The acute world-wide realization that the ex¬ 
istence of any given nation, from now on, critically de¬ 
pended upon what it might seize from the present crisis 
of world affairs. Which put together and hung beside 
the pattern of whisperings that reached his ears led Bliss 
into the very heart of a great conspiracy: a plot to link 
the East and West across the top of the globe and leave 
America dangling helplessly between. 

Yet he still had lacked substantial proof. So he had im¬ 
portuned the Navy Department for transfer to the Asiatic 
Fleet. For six months no clue had come his way. Then 
abruptly and by the purest accident he had struck the 
trail again. Once more he managed transfer. Hurried 
back to Washington. Laid'the groundwork of his plans 
before those best qualified to act. 

“London and Tokyo are on opposite sides of the Pole,” 
he had explained. “They represent the gigantic markets 
of Europe and Asia. Halfway between, in the unexplored 
area of the Polar Sea, may lie an unknown land. If so, 
transpolar traffic becomes a fact at once. For such a 
land would provide a half-way station. Cunning minds 
in Asia realize this. This summer those minds intend to 
find that land. And their tactics will be such that they 
cannot lose. So why not get our newest airship there 
first and win the prize for America?” 

But that was before the new scheme to use the ZR-5 
for a polar flight. He had been rebuffed. Too expensive 
in these years of high taxes, he had been informed. And 
public opinion was already suspicious beyond the Gov¬ 
ernment’s power to allay. Even the State Department 
had turned a cold shoulder until to-day. Now, at last, 
he felt he had won their help. But the cost had been 
great. He had been forced to divulge that which should 
have been kept secret. Spies were everywhere. Once 
certain persons knew, Bliss suspected he must fail. For 

6 



THE TRAIL GROWS HOT 


it would be impossible, as he had found already, to con¬ 
vince Washington of the danger that lay ahead. 

Meanwhile another smoldering ember within him had 
flared up. That was his affection for Joan Beckett. Yet 
this part of the young man’s subterranean pyrotechnics 
may have been only a branch of the other. For enchant¬ 
ing Joan was the daughter of a brilliant and distinguished 
admiral. And this admiral was parent of more than Joan. 
For Admiral Beckett first of all had fathered the idea 
of sending the Navy’s giant new dirigible to the utter¬ 
most corners of the earth. 

“Which means,” Bliss had cried on the deck of the ship 
he served, “that the ZR-5 could fly to the North Pole 
and hunt for the missing Norsemen! And I could go 
with her! And find them! And Joan will be so proud 
of me there won’t be any question—” 

At which point in the poor lad’s daydream would 
arise like an evil thing the ghostly image of a thick and 
florid face with coarsened features creased into a smirk 
of triumph, the face of one Thorne Welchor, his strongest 
rival for Joan Beckett’s heart and hand. 

In justice to the man we must here record that to the 
casual observer Welchor was far from being the arch¬ 
fiend his young competitor always pictured him. 

Certainly he was an adventurer and a social parasite. 
His type is to be found in every nucleus of cosmopolitan 
society such as frequents a national capital like Wash¬ 
ington. Outwardly he was a prosperous, graceful, present¬ 
able, and entertaining man of the world. Yet inwardly 
he was a true hunter, seeking those whom he might devour 
for his own selfish gain. No doubt the excitement of the 
chase he found alluring. He must have been brave and 
chivalrous under some circumstances. But the fact re¬ 
mained that those who really knew him—and they were 
few and scattered—knew him for an unscrupulous rascal 

7 



ZR WINS! 


whose effrontery tolerated no bounds by human law or 
conscience. 

Thus it was to Eppley’s credit that he had instinctively 
pierced the man’s disguise. Whether Welchor actually 
possessed the wealth he pretended to, or was impeccable 
in dress and manners, mattered little in the young officer’s 
estimation. What really counted was that Welchor was 
in certain far-off quarters deemed to be a crook, and a 
proven one as well. For him to marry a decent girl like 
Joan Beckett was a catastrophe to be prevented at any 
cost. 

“Thorne Welchor couldn’t really love her!” Bliss 
argued in his heart. “He is the kind of man who couldn’t 
ever really love any one but himself!” 

Whence would come fresh fuel to the conflagration in 
his breast; until his mind would seem to sizzle like a 
surcharged boiler ready to explode and blow his sanity 
into atoms. Even in moments when no explosion 
threatened Bliss was always conscious of being torn this 
way and that by forces greater than his strength: the 
luring mystery of the lost north colony; the lurking 
menace of a man like Welchor; and, finally, an undying 
love for his Joan. 

A wave of excitement swept him as he swerved around 
the last corner just before reaching his destination. The 
adventure of it! The romance of just living! Even if 
the final truth fell short of his great dream. He smiled. 

Then suddenly his expression fell to steely grimness. 
For in that instant he remembered this was no common 
lark; no simple opportunity to make of himself a hero. 
Vast issues were at stake. The very existence of his 
own beloved country, for which so many times he had 
already risked his life. The peace, the security, the pros¬ 
perity of generations to come! 

At the hotel he inquired for his reservation. “Room 

8 



THE TRAIL GROWS HOT 


for Mr. Waverly?” There came a certain thrill of in¬ 
trigue in using the alias. 

While he did so he was conscious of being scrutinized 
by a tall dark man in a soft hat leaning against a near-by 
pillar. As he signed “G. D. Waverly” to the register the 
man approached him and, though seeming not to see him, 
muttered as he passed: 

“You must hurry, Mr. Eppley. They have arrived.” 

In his room Bliss looked around. Yes, there was a 
heater, a hot-air pipe about two feet square near the 
bottom of one wall. A metal lattice protected it. It was 
the work of but a minute or two to unscrew this grating. 

“Guess this must be what was meant,” he reflected as 
he peered into the black depths of the pipe. “But—” 

Suddenly he cocked his head. Out of the abyss below 
came the faint murmur of voices. Becoming accustomed 
to the darkness his eye caught a steel beam several feet 
down. Throwing off his coat he lowered himself care¬ 
fully. To his joy he discovered the pipe divided at this 
point, one section leading to his own room, the other 
apparently to the adjoining room. 

Light dawned. “So this is where they’re to meet.” 
He grinned in the darkness. “And I’m to get the low- 
down on them at last!” 

Skillfully he crawled upward. The room he peered 
into was an exact duplicate of his own except that in its 
center was a large table. On this table lay a mass of 
papers, maps, drawings, and writing materials. Around 
the table sat four men. Two of the men were Orientals; 
two were white. As Bliss’ eye fell upon the larger of the 
white men, a sleek individual of forty-odd, he started. 
“Thorne Welchor! Well I’ll be damned!” 

So besides being a rival for Joan Beckett’s heart here 
was the scoundrel bartering for the other prize with which 

9 




ZR WINS! 


Fate had beckoned Bliss. The conflagration inside the 
eavesdropper bade fair to become a holocaust! 

Welchor was talking: 

“Take it or leave it,” he was saying in a disagreeable 
tone. “You gentlemen know what you are up against!” 

The elder Oriental picked up a piece of paper with 
delicate fingers and scanned the array of figures on it. 
“A vast sum of money,” he protested faintly. 

“Tightwads!” commented the other white man. Bliss 
noted with disgust his thin evil face and drooping lids. 

“Shut up, Scammell!” warned Welchor. “These are 
gentlemen we are dealing with.” To the Orientals he 
went on: “Remember you are competing with the United 
States, Great Britain, and France. Both Belgium and 
Norway have unofficial entries that ought also to be 
•considered. The winning nation is good for ten mil¬ 
lion dollars a year profit even if the idea of this crazy 
young naval officer fizzles.” 

Bliss in his dusty hiding place scowled and clenched 
his fist. 

“You think, Meester Welchor, there is a chance he may 
be right?” 

The big man smote the table with his fist. 

“A damn good chance, sir! Fve talked it all over with 
him at a certain young lady’s house where I often see 
him, and I believe he has the dope. But his Government 
probably won’t support him. They have to be too blamed 
conservative.” 

Bliss grinned. “Won’t support me, eh? Perhaps not. 
But they’ll let me hear myself talked about, you low- 
down traitor! That’s what I get for trying to be nice 
to one of Joan’s friends!” 

“It’ll be a tough flight,” growled Scammell. “Over 
two thousand miles at a hop.” 

Welchor grabbed a chart. “Stop your whining!” he 
io 



THE TRAIL GROWS HOT 


snapped. “I bet we make land inside the first six hours!” 

“Land, yes. But what kind? Tell me that, will you? ,, 

“If I could do you think I’d be committing treason 
with this pair of rice eaters?” he hissed. 

A mild voice interrupted. “If you fail, Meester 
Welchor—?” 

“The others will fail, too!” 

“You will see to that?” 

Welchor shrugged and gave his white companion a 
wink. 

“Easiest thing we do! Eh, Scammell?” 

“The blame will not fall on our country?” 

“The blame will fall on the fools who will pit them¬ 
selves against us. If they choose to ignore the warnings 
we shall send them they can take the consequences.” 

The elder Oriental rose. “Then, my friends, it is a 
bargain. This day I deposit one hundred thousand dol¬ 
lars at your bank for preliminary expenses. You say. you 
have an option on the plane already. It is better that we 
make no more meetings of any sort. I shall not go north 
with you.” 

“How about the other payments?” put in Welchor dis¬ 
trustfully. 

“On the day we receive authentic word that the flight 
is completed,” responded the yellow man slowly, “five 
hundred thousand dollars will be added to your bank 
account.” 

Scammell’s wolfish eyes glinted. “And if there’s land?” 

“A million dollars, Meester Scammell.” 

For a moment the two sat tensely eying one another 
as if each were measuring the other’s ability to conclude 
the strange bargain. Yet to Bliss it seemed that the 
dominating note in the yellow man’s expression was one 
of infinite contempt. Despite his own iniquity the pagan 
ii 



ZR WINS! 


could not quite hide his loathing for betrayal of one's 
country. 

Welchor leaned forward with a curious quizzical look. 
“There is one little point I'd like to inquire about," he 
said. “That’s how you know you can trust us." 

Both Orientals permitted themselves the luxury of 
slight smiles. The younger opened his mouth, but before 
he could speak a dull humming sound borne on the wings 
of a springtime breeze drifted suddenly in through the 
open window. 

Scammell sprang to his feet. “There’s the dirigible 
now!" he cried, and ran to the window. 

“You said—?" persisted Welchor. 

“Nothing, yet," smiled the elder Oriental. After a 
moment he added: “We trust you, Meester Welchor, 
because we think you are happy in thees life.” 

At the white man’s comical look Bliss had to smother 
a chuckle. 

The distant hum became more audible. “Look!” cried 
Scammell excitedly from the window. 

Unable to resist the conspirator’s enthusiasm Bliss 
ducked back through his passage and into his own room. 
Peering cautiously out his first glance caught, to his vast 
delight, the familiar figure of Joan Beckett on the side¬ 
walk directly opposite the hotel. Like all about her she, 
too, was gazing upward. With a little exclamation of 
joy Bliss seized his hat and coat and raced for the street. 



CHAPTER II 

THE WORLD’S LAST RIDDLE 


E xcitement prevailed. . . . 

From one end of Pennsylvania Avenue to the 
other swept an electric thrill of amazement. Press 
reports had prepared no one for such a sight as this. 
Facts, figures, prophecies, claims, exaggerations, all fell 
short of the real exhibition. 

Traffic jammed. Women fainted. Men fought and 
struggled with purposeless agitation. Policemen shouted 
for order. Honking cars and clanging trolleys added to 
the din. 

But every eye remained fixed upon the sky. 

America’s newest sensation hung there: the gigantic 
dirigible, ZR-5. As though suspended by an invisible 
thread the huge airship swung slowly towards the center 
of the city. Her silvered hull sparkled in the morning 
sunshine. Glint of her whirring propeller blades was 
occasionally visible. A broad band of color marked the 
underbody where the cabin structures were. 

Over the Capitol the ZR-5 circled gracefully and settled 
gently towards the avenue so packed with marveling 
humanity. 

In the shelter of a doorway stood the two young people. 
“Oh, she’s too beautiful!” exclaimed the girl. 

“Yes,” assented Eppley absently. He alone of all the 
multitude gazed not at the sky. “Yes, beautiful,” he 
echoed, his eyes well engaged with the slender figure be¬ 
fore him; the soft curve of the girl’s cheek; the fascinat- 
13 


ZR WINS! 


ing pursing of her lips as she enjoyed with childlike 
enthusiasm the spectacle aloft. 

Suddenly he, too, glanced upward. Something of the 
morning’s freshness was reflected in his clean features and 
ruddy skin. And as his keen blue eyes focused upon the 
dirigible a certain alertness came over him. He shot a 
glance at the tower clock across the street. 

‘‘Look here, Joan,” he exclaimed, “I forgot to tell you 
that I have to appear before the Navy Air Board this 
morning.” 

His companion whirled about with a little “Oh!” of 
disappointment. 

“But you said you’d go to the station with me! You’re 
always rushing off!” 

“I know, but—” His look wavered to the crowd, to 
the mammoth airship now almost abreast them, rushing 
sixty miles an hour through the invisible air. 

“But what, Bliss?” 

“It means so much. You know it does. It may mean 
you, dear! If I can get them to let me make the trip in 
the ZR~5 your father would no longer object.” 

A hurt look touched the sweet face turned up to his. 

“He will always object while you are in the Navy, 
Bliss. Just now I think he’d really rather I marry Thorne 
Welchor.” 

“ Welchor! Why, Joan, if I could tell—” 

“Don’t, Bliss,” she interrupted. “I like Thorne. Play 
fair.” 

“What do you mean ‘play fair’?” A horrible sus¬ 
picion crossed his mind. 

“I mean that you are not the only one interested in the 
Navy’s polar flight next month. Mr. Welchor is per¬ 
fectly mad about the whole scheme. Daddy sits by the 
hour telling him the plans.” 

For the space of a second an awful thought seared 



THE WORLD’S LAST RIDDLE 


the young man’s mind. But pressure of the moment 
drove it out again. “I am playing fair, Joan,” he re¬ 
torted. “That’s the whole trouble. Anyway, I’ve got 
to run this moment.” He hesitated, then bent his head. 
“Joan, dear, couldn’t it be me no matter what happens?” 

“No matter what happens, Bliss?” she echoed with 
just the faintest touch of wistfulness. 

“Yes,” he whispered. 

The dirigible was now past the Treasury. Hum of its 
purring motors was wafted back as the reply came almost 
inaudibly: 

“I think so, dear.” 

With something between a choke and a shout the 
ecstatic youth seized the girl’s shoulders and drew her 
to him. 

“Then I’ll make them believe me!” he whispered 
fiercely. “You watch!” 

For an instant he wavered. The lips so near his own 
were very inviting. The brown eyes very shining. In 
that second the swarming populace did not exist. . . . 
Then common sense returned. He smiled. Next moment 
he was gone. 

Plunging through the crowd' he felt again the flames 
of love and hope. True, Joan’s father, Admiral Beckett, 
opposed his suit. And likewise true was Thorne Welch- 
or’s insistent wooing of the girl. But Welchor was a 
traitor to his country. The meeting Bliss had overheard 
had settled that. Armed with this knowledge Bliss might 
at once eliminate his rival from the game. 

Yet infinitely larger for the moment was the other 
issue. And if Welchor’s backers were warned too soon 
so that the villainy of their tool were known very easily 
could they hire another man to do the work. 

Then there was the complication of Joan’s father. 
Were the Admiral taken into the State Department’s con- 

15 



ZR WINS! 


fidence at this critical time he, too, might unwittingly 
divulge enough by action only to put the plotters on their 
guard. That he should favor a man of Welchor’s out¬ 
ward bearing and reputed bank account for a son-in-law 
was entirely to be expected. Indeed, as against the youth¬ 
ful and apparently hairbrained Eppley a tempered man 
of the world was infinitely to be desired. 

As for the Navy itself, Bliss longed to go to the De¬ 
partment and say: “Look here, old timers, you’ve got 
to wake up. If the United States doesn’t get her airship 
into the unknown area northeast of Alaska before any one 
else and find the land that probably lies there she stands 
to lose incalculably!” 

Even if the Navy planned to do exactly as he wished he 
would liked to have pointed out that a certain sporting 
gentleman, Thorne Welchor by name, was in the pay 
of a jealous power, and had agreed to prevent by strong 
means, fair or foul, the success of any other air expedi¬ 
tion trying to reach the coveted goal first. That Welchor 
was only a hireling, as well as the success with which he 
had ingratiated himself into the whole Beckett family, 
compelled Bliss Eppley now to act with almost super¬ 
human circumspection. 

Reasoning thus, and supported by the State Depart¬ 
ment, he saw that his one chance of success was to con¬ 
vince the naval authorities that his hope to find land in 
the Polar Sea was not a far-fetched dream at all. The 
value of an air base near the Pole and its relation to future 
traffic between Europe and Asia might sway them to see 
merit in his proposition and detail him as a member of the 
party picked to go. Then, and only then, could he surely 
frustrate the ugly scheme afoot and see the Stars and 
Stripes afloat above the new-found land. 

When he reached the Navy Department ten minutes 
later he found the Committee already in session: five 

16 



THE WORLD’S LAST RIDDLE 


admirals, two captains, and a clerk. Admiral Beckett, 
sitting near the head of the table, nodded curtly to his 
daughter’s choice of a mate. A vigorous man the Admiral 
was, still in the prime of life. Something of his colorful 
imagination that had led him first to visualize the 
enormous significance of the Navy’s northern project 
showed in the keen lines of his strikingly handsome face. 

Admiral Buckley, the chairman, introduced the new¬ 
comer : 

“Gentlemen, Lieutenant Eppley is with us this morning 
in regard to the subject I have already outlined.” 

Bliss bowed and took the chair indicated. 

“It’s rather a wild idea,” the Admiral went on. “Mat¬ 
ter of history to some extent, I admit. But there’s a lot 
in history that has to be taken with a grain of salt. 
Correct me if I make a mistake, Eppley. 

“Seems that Norway established a colony in North 
Greenland about noo a.d., some time after Eric the Red 
is supposed to have discovered America. In the six¬ 
teenth century this colony disappeared. Norway forgot 
to send out any ships.” 

“Pardon me, Admiral,” interrupted Bliss, “but it wasn’t 
a case of forgetting. Plague and war swept Europe about 
that time. Just as in 1914, everything was thrown into 
the maelstrom of war.” 

“Mr. Eppley is correct, gentlemen. And I wish to do 
him the justice of sticking to the facts of the case. Nor¬ 
way let her arctic colony go by the board simply because 
she didn’t have the ships or money to send after them. 
When the Danes rediscovered Greenland about 1650 the 
colony had disappeared. I believe there are a few ruins 
of stone houses left there to-day. But so far as we know 
the mystery of their disappearance has never been solved.” 

Admiral Buckley turned to the young officer. “I think, 
Eppley, that you might go on from there.” 

17 



ZR WINS! 


Bliss rose. The confidence of a great faith sustained 
him. He might have been Columbus pleading for his 
ships. A faint smile played about his mouth. His ex¬ 
pression was ineffably eager. 

“Gentlemen, it is the greatest riddle in history!” 

He paused dramatically. Cynical old admirals and 
younger captains with the prejudice of their newer 
prestige leaned forward with interest. 

‘'Think of it! Possibly ten thousand—perhaps as 
many as a hundred thousand men, women, and children— 
disappearing overnight, so to speak! The existing 
archives in Bergen prove they had prospered. For ten 
generations they had multiplied and grown independent 
off the rich fiords of Southern Greenland. The Eskimos 
did not interfere, for Eskimos know nothing of the art 
of war. Disease is practically unknown in that climate. 
The happiness we know existed among them precluded 
any sort of internal strife. They did not sail away for 
they had no ships; and Greenland has no trees out of 
which they might have built others. Gentlemen, but one 
thing could have happened to that great multitude of 
human beings.” 

Behind the Admiral hung a large-scale chart of the 
world. Pointing to it Bliss went on: 

“In the vast basin of the Polar Sea there is an area of 
over 1,000,000 square miles that has not yet been ex¬ 
plored. This huge space unquestionably contains a land- 
mass of substantial size. Tidal currents prove it. Also 
the seismic axes of the Aleutians and Japan. The center 
of this land-mass lies northeast of Alaska, and consider¬ 
ably south of the Pole itself. The route between it and 
the location of the lost Norwegian colony leads along 
game-infested coasts. ... I believe, gentlemen, that the 
Norwegians migrated to this land.” 

Admiral Beasley, senior member by virtue of his age 
18 



THE WORLD’S LAST RIDDLE 


and length of service, and thoroughly disapproving of the 
whole performance, paused in the rolling of a cigarette 
long enough to shake his snow-white bullet head at Bliss. 
“No wonder good old-fashioned seamen don’t exist these 
days,” he complained in a voice that quavered slightly. 

With a reflective motion and the aid of a huge white 
silk handkerchief Admiral Beckett burnished the tip of 
his shapely nose, then broke in with a blunt question: 

“But tell me, young man, how you can account for 
such stupidity? Certainly if the Norwegian colonists 
had been ensconced in South Greenland for eight or ten 
generations they weren’t going to up and leave without 
good cause.” 

“Fiddlesticks!” muttered Admiral Beasley irrelevantly. 
Experience had taught him that wordy argument seldom 
swerves Youth from the snares of Destiny. 

Bliss hesitated. Well he might. For he faced the 
father of the girl whose life he felt was irrevocably 
linked with his. And Joan Beckett’s parent was no fool, 
despite his outward blufifness. 

“The answer, Admiral Beckett, is that on which I base 
my whole proposal to the Navy Department. I believe 
that the Norwegians went north to the new land because 
they discovered that it had a more temperate climate 
and—” 

“More temperate climate!” ejaculated Bliss’ father-in¬ 
law-to-be. “What kind of geography do they teach at 
school these days, anyway?” 

But Bliss lost not a whit of his composure. With his 
ever-ready smile still hovering he went on with slow 
and scientific precision: 

“It sounds incredible, sir, I admit. But there is sub¬ 
stantial reason for believing that there exists in the un¬ 
explored region of the Polar Sea an undiscovered arctic 
19 



ZR WINS! 


continent which is warmed by subterranean heat. In a 
word a steam-heated polar paradise!” 

‘‘Sounds like a mental case to me,” observed Engineer¬ 
ing Captain Middle in a bored tone. 

Admiral Beasley for the first time looked pleased. 
“Right in your line, Middle. Don’t you handle steam¬ 
heating plants?” 

Admiral Buckley tapped the table with his pencil. “It 
is at least due Lieutenant Eppley that he be allowed to 
finish,” he suggested. 

“But, Buckley, have we time to waste on any such 
nonsense as this?” interposed the Chief of Aeronautics. 
“You realize that our itinerary for the ZR-5 requires that 
she attempt the polar flight next month no matter what 
happens. And our past failures, coupled with the fact 
that two other nations, England and France, are now 
striving officially to get across the Pole ahead of us, com¬ 
pel us to devote all our energy to that achievement, and 
that alone. And while such a sideline as Lieutenant 
Eppley suggests is doubtless interesting from a purely 
academic point of view, it can have no practical bearing 
on our plans.” 

Bliss leaned forward with a shade of grimness in his 
tautened lips. “Does it sound purely academic, sir, to re¬ 
mind you that if England’s plane, say, by a slight digres¬ 
sion, reaches this new land first she will then control 
forever after all routes across the top of the world both 
tactically and strategically? Do you recall, sir,” Bliss’s 
voice trembled with the intensity of his argument, “that 
the distance between London and Tokyo, which by the 
regular routes is 11,000 miles, will be cut 5,000 by the 
transpolar circuit? Why, in ten years every sort of com¬ 
merce and travel is going to be diverted to the Polar Sea 
each year from May to September!” 

Admiral Beckett turned from the chart which he had 


20 



THE WORLD’S LAST RIDDLE 


been studying. “I understand, Eppley, that your idea is 
for us to permit you to accompany the ZR-5 as a member 
of her regular complement in order that you may assist 
in piloting her to the land you believe lies in the unexplored 
area of the Polar Sea?” 

“Yes, sir.” Bliss nodded hopefully. 

His questioner faced the Chairman. “Then, Buckley, 
what is the objection to granting this young man’s re¬ 
quest ?” 

Before the latter could reply the Chief of Aeronautics 
had the floor again. Glancing around with an expression 
of annoyance he said: “If I may be permitted the liberty 
of interrupting, I should like to answer that question. 
There are two perfectly good reasons, gentlemen, why we 
cannot permit Lieutenant Eppley to foist his romance 
upon the ZR-5. First, because such a theory is too im¬ 
probable to keep company with scientific and military 
endeavor. And second, while I do not wish unjustly to 
impugn the character of a young officer, I personally 
believe that it would be better for all concerned if he had 
nothing to do with the dirigible’s plans.” 

For a moment Bliss could gaze only with astonish¬ 
ment at his superior officer. The color in his cheeks ebbed 
perceptibly. “What do you mean, sir?” he gasped. 

The Chief bestowed a contemptuous smile upon him. 

“You mean, sir,” asked Bliss in a bone-dry voice, 
“that some of the confidential things have leaked out?” 

The Chief of Aeronautics swept the gathering with a 
complacent look. “I have my own scouts always out,” 
he observed blandly. “We cannot be too careful. There 
is too much at stake. It may interest all of you to learn 
that the secrecy of our plans for the ZR-5 has not once 
remained intact for as much as twenty-four hours after 
their being discussed in our private board room. Although 
Lieutenant Eppley has attended none of our previous 
21 



ZR WINS! 


meetings, he is the only one outside the regular Board 
and officers attached to the dirigible, who has been per¬ 
mitted access to our minutes. Therefore, I am at least 
compelled to put him in a position from which he may 
defend himself.” 

Having delivered this salvo the Admiral sat down. 

Then Bliss’ heart seemed suddenly to stop. He recalled 
something Joan had told him in their brief conversation 
not fifteen minutes before. Her words now dinned in his 
ears: “Daddy sits by the hour telling him the plans” 

Bliss felt stupefied. He was afraid to look at Admiral 
Beckett. Something told him that Joan’s father did not 
even suspect the truth of Welchor’s treasonable behavior. 
Instead, he must be shuddering at the thought of his 
daughter associating with such a man as had just been 
revealed. 

After what seemed hours of fearful silence Admiral 
Buckley reminded the Board that time was flying. “If 
it is the sentiment of the members present that we simply 
drop this matter and go on with our other business we 
can let Lieutenant Eppley go.” 

A murmur of approval greeted his words. 

For an instant a wild impulse seized Bliss to burst out 
and defend himself against the outrageous implication 
which must now be unanimously believed: namely, that 
he was not to be trusted with professional secrets. But 
the thought of Joan’s father stayed him. The Admiral 
was the soul of honor. Should it come out that he had 
unwittingly betrayed the inmost confidences of the Navy 
Department, even innocently and in time of peace, the 
degradation he would feel would kill him. 

Moreover, Bliss realized almost in the same flash that 
he was playing for a bigger stake than just his personal 
honor. Who could say? Some day new land in the 
Polar Ocean might mean the very life and liberty of his 
22 



THE WORLD’S LAST RIDDLE 


country. Revealing Welchor and his machinations at 
this time would result only in the Orientals buying some 
other rogue, and one perhaps more difficult to snare. 

He rose. “I am sorry, sir, that things have gone this 
way,” he said with what dignity he could command. 
Admiral Buckley did not deign to reply. Bliss turned, 
and feeling more like a condemned murderer than a 
patriot dragged his heavy feet out of the room. 



CHAPTER III 
A WARNING 

T HE dilemma in which Eppley now found himself 
was clearly defined. If, despite his efforts, the 
ZR-5 crossed the Pole on a direct route to Nor¬ 
way, as the Navy Department planned, she must miss his 
supposed polar continent altogether. For, if such a land 
did exist, all available data pointed to its location on the 
Canadian side of the Point Barrow-North Cape course. 
On the other hand, if he forced an investigation of his 
theories about the lost Norse Colony of Greenland, or 
even of Welchor’s plot, public opinion might turn against 
the Navy’s extravagance and demand that the proposed 
transpolar flight be abandoned entirely. 1 axes were 
growing higher every day. And the press accorded little 
sympathy to any agitation that savored of intrigue. 

There was absolutely nothing more he could accomplish 
in Washington. To vindicate himself before the Board 
of Aeronautics meant sacrifice of Joan’s father. lo 
attack Welchor with so little direct evidence involved the 
risk of not only making himself more ridiculed than ever, 
but of putting the scoundrels on guard against him. 

One course remained: To secure leave of absence at 
once and betake himself to Point Barrow from which 
the great race was scheduled to start. The trip was bound 
to be intensely interesting. There would be the excite¬ 
ment of seeing the various hop-offs. He could keep an eye 
on the plotters. And there was always the chance that 
something might turn up so that he could make the flight 
on the dirigible after all. 

So before leaving the Navy Department he visited the 
24 


A WARNING 


Record Office of the Bureau of Navigation, lie was in 
formed that due to his not having taken any leave for 
nearly three yearn he could now officially he granted a 
furlough of two month#. 

The task of forcing his request through the proper 
channels occupied less than half an hour, lie quitted the 
building with a feeling of real freedom. For two months 
at least he would he able to pursue his great adventure 
undisturbed by the burden of official routine. 

At the Club he wired for reservation# to Seattle, thence 
by boat to Skagway and Nome. Also he dispatched an 
extravagant telegram to a famous outfitting house in New 
York which had for years kept him in camp gear and 
travel kit for his various hunting expeditions in all parts 
of the world. 

Turning away from the desk he found himself face 
to face with a plump bald headed individual who greeted 
him with a thumb in his ribs and a chortled; 

“Hello, you old lunaticI" 

Bliss seized the other's fat shoulders. 

“Scotty, you're just the man I’m after!" 

McAlford grinned. “Looking for sympathy, old top? 
They’ve just told me what that gang in the Department 
handed you this afternoon. Gee, fellow, but you have 

galH” 

But Bliss had no ear for bantering. Time was too 
short, lie dragged the puffing Scotty to his room. As 
Chief Engineer of the ZK-5, Lieutenant Scot McAlford 
was the one man above all others wh/> must he warned. 

“I leave for Alaska to-morrow," he announced when 
the door was shut. 

“Not with usl" 

Bliss shook his head a little grimly. 

“Couldn’t make it. You ought to know if they told you 
about that session we had this afternoon." 

2 5 




ZR WINS! 


Scotty suddenly rose from the chair he had taken, came 
over and laid his hand affectionately on his friend’s 
shoulder. 

“Look here, old scout, don’t make a fool of yourself. 
There have been rumors now for over a year that you 
are going dippy on this Polar Flight business. Don’t you 
realize that our aviation gang can handle the thing well 
enough? It’s just a stunt, we all admit. But it’s a darn 
profitable stunt. Why, if we can only jolt private capital 
into a transcontinental dirigible service we shall have done 
enough for the country to have repaid the Government 
fully for its investment in the ZR-5. Don’t you remember 
when we were out in Los Angeles harbor a few years ago 
and the first Long Beach wildcat came in? Three thou¬ 
sand barrels of oil right off the bat! Easiest thing in the 
world for the community to grab fortunes off the top of 
the hill that stood in the middle of their city. Yet not 
until that second well exploded with a roar we could hear 
ten miles out to sea and shot gas flames 200 feet into 
the air did people around get wise to themselves and put 
up the cash to develop the field.” 

Bliss smiled sadly. “Scotty, that’s the line they all 
give me. Dollars and cents—dollars and cents!” 

“But, man, don’t dollars and cents make the world go 
round? Can’t you realize that if the Navy doesn’t pro¬ 
vide the same sort of jolt to private capital that the 
Long Beach gas well did we are going to have foreign 
airships carrying our commerce in a few years just the 
way foreign bottoms do it now?” 

“But you don’t understand!” cried Bliss. “All that 
will come in its own good time. I’m on a far more 
serious job than business promotion. Scotty, I’m after 
the most valuable bit of unclaimed territory that lies on 
the surface of the earth! I stand in a fair way to assure 
for the United States the most astounding discovery in 

26 



A WARNING 


all ages! And, as a sideline, I’m after the most danger¬ 
ous gang of traitors that ever tried to sell their country’s 
name.” 

Scotty groaned long and loudly, shaking his head like 
an irritated old bear. 

“Oh, you’re hopeless—hopeless! For God’s sake, Bliss, 
chuck this insane dream you’re having and get a good sea 
job that will put you back where you belong in the estima¬ 
tion of your friends. Why, the Skipper told me only this 
afternoon that if you didn’t shove off with your absurd 
hallucinations he was going to see that a medical survey 
was held on your sanity.” 

For reply Bliss gave vent to a bitter laugh. During 
his week in Washington he had been growing hardened 
to this sort of thing. Indeed, he had heard so much of 
the other side of the question that he had really begun 
to see how easy it was for the unconvinced man to believe 
him crazy. Yet not for a moment had his confidence been 
shaken. The proofs he had collected through all these 
years were too substantial. 

“Scotty, old man, don’t go back on me,” he pleaded. 
“You needn’t believe what I say. You needn’t even pre¬ 
tend to support my personal reputation. But please, I 
beg of you, don’t for one instant leave either your en¬ 
gines or your fuel unguarded from this day forward!” 

At the words Scotty snatched from his mouth the fat 
cigar he had lit to calm his annoyance at his friend’s 
stubbornness. Through a cloud of acrid smoke he ex¬ 
claimed : 

“My engines! What do you mean?” 

“I mean,” said Bliss evenly, “despite my alleged in¬ 
sanity, I happen to know that unless the ZR-5 is guarded 
night and day from now on she will never leave Alaskan 
shores. Nor will the British, Norwegian, French or 
Belgian planes get away!” 


27 



ZR WINS! 


“But who’s to prevent?” 

“That I cannot tell you. Not that I don’t trust you, 
Scotty. But I am already suspected by members of the 
conspiracy. They know that I am the only good Ameri¬ 
can who seems crazy enough to visualize what may be 
found in the Polar Sea. And they will put me out of the 
running the moment they find I am working against them. 
In fact, they would do that already, but they are afraid 
suspicion might be turned their way if anything hap¬ 
pened to me.” 

McAlford appeared to ponder. A deep wrinkle spread 
beneath the polished dome of his hairless superstructure. 
But no gleam seemed to penetrate the fog of his puzzle¬ 
ment. Then abruptly a ray of inward sunshine lit the 
outward shadow of his expression. 

“Say, Bliss,” he boomed, “how about some feed? You 
talk; I eat! What say?” 

Bliss smiled. “Sorry, old man, but I haven’t even time 
to sleep to-night. Got to leave by the early train to¬ 
morrow. I’ve persuaded them to give me two months’ 
furlough. That will enable me at least to see the ZR get 
started across the Polar Sea. And I have an idea that I 
may, after all, be able to put a kink in the plans of those 
devils who are on your trail. Also,” Bliss added a little 
wistfully, “if any one falls ill in your gang I may yet 
be able to go along.” 

“I hope so, old man,” put in the other fervently. 

Bliss put out his hand. “So long, Scotty. I’ve got 
to say good-by to some one else this afternoon.” 

The two young mariners gripped hands. And there 
passed in silence between them something invisible that 
vouchsafed a loyalty unbreakable. And for the first time 
since his terrible moments in the Board room an hour 
before Bliss felt his self-respect thoroughly returned. The 
faith of a single man of Me Alford’s rocklike character 
28 



A WARNING 


was sufficient to clear his conscience before the world if 
need be. 

Bliss found Joan ready with tea for a visitor. Despite 
the cordiality of her greeting he noticed something of 
constraint in her manner. Was it possible that she had 
changed since her whispered surrender of the morning? 

“Good boy!” she exclaimed happily when he appeared; 
but the next instant glanced anxiously in the direction of 
the door. 

Bliss took swift survey of her trim gown, the appetizing 
color of her cheeks, the magic of her fleeting smile before 
replying. 

“No, good-by,” he corrected. 

“Oh!” she flashed back. “You’re going?” 

“Not with the dirigible, Joan. But I have leave of 
absence.” 

Inwardly he struggled with the problem of how much 
to tell her. Certainly her father would reveal something 
of the afternoon’s disgraceful procedure. And while 
Admiral Beckett had at first been favorable to the enter¬ 
prise as Bliss had depicted it, no doubt his opinion must 
now be biased by the unrefuted accusation of the Chief of 
Aeronautics. 

“Then you’re going to see them off?” 

“Exactly, old dear. I leave for Alaska to-morrow. 
It’s an interesting trip up the coast, and there is bound to 
be some excitement at the take-off. You know I saw 
Alcock make his famous hop from Newfoundland.” 

The girl clasped her hands. “I’m really glad, Bliss. 
Because now you will grow to be friends with Mr. 
Welchor. He is nice when you get to know him.” 

So the scoundrel had made free with his future move¬ 
ments after all, thought Bliss. Aloud he said dryly: 

“I’d heard he’s going up; but I don’t see what for.” 

“Why, he has the finest plan you ever heard of! He’s 
29 



ZR WINS! 


going to have his own plane; and he will be able to follow 
the others out over the ice when they make their start. 
Won’t that be exciting?” 

Bliss nodded. If only he dared speak the truth! Sud¬ 
denly he had an inspiration. 

“Joan, you were expecting some one to tea weren’t 
you?” 

“Yes, Bliss, Mr. Welchor himself. He was anxious 
to see father this evening and asked if he might drop in 
and wait for him. I was afraid when you came that 
things wouldn’t be pleasant because you dislike him so. 
Bliss, he really likes you. Did you know that?” 

“You don’t say so!” Bliss leaned forward and took 
the girl’s hand. “Joan, dear, can I trust you?” 

She nodded, a little apprehensive at the sudden fierce¬ 
ness in his face. 

“Then I want to tell you several unpleasant truths that 
you must remember after I am gone. Please don’t in¬ 
terrupt me until I am through. And don’t judge me 
harshly until you have had time to weigh what I have 
said.” 

The hand in his gave a little pressure of acceptance 
of his terms. 

“This afternoon I went before the Advisory Board of 
the Bureau of Aeronautics and asked them to let me join 
the ZR-5 in her transpolar flight next month. I gave 
them the proofs I had that there is land in the million 
square miles of unexplored area of the Polar Sea. I 
pointed out the really fair chance we have of finding some 
trace of the lost Norwegian colony of Greenland.” 

“Weren’t they thrilled, Bliss?” 

“Oh, yes, tremendously thrilled. Your father threw 
a couple of bricks at me, and the Chief of Aeronautics 
called me a traitor and a liar before the whole blistering 
crowd!” 


30 



A WARNING 


Joan’s pretty head snapped up. “That was rotten of 
them! I’m going to give Daddy a piece of my mind when 
he returns! I hope you went right back at them, Bliss.” 

“No, Joan,” the words came painfully. “I couldn’t 
very well.” 

The soft hand was snatched from his. “You don’t 
mean to say that it was true!” 

“No—no, it wasn’t true. Not even remotely true. But 
I was in a position that made it impossible to defend 
myself. I want you to know this because after I have 
gone you may hear a very different story.” 

“But, Bliss, think of your professional reputation! A 
man always owes it to himself to save his character and 
reputation not only for the sake of his future but for the 
sake of those who—who love him!” 

“But suppose there is a greater thing at stake?” 

The girl’s eyes widened. “Can there be a greater thing 
than—than—” 

Somewhere a doorbell jangled. 

“Yes,” said Bliss gently, “there can be a greater stake— 
even than love!” 

Doubt and disappointment swept the comely face he 
scanned so anxiously as a passing cloud might blot the 
sunshine from a blossomed meadow. 

A maid appeared in the doorway. “Mr. Welchor, 
Miss.” 

“Tell him to come in, Janet.” 

“Listen!” Bliss shot his words with anguished speed. 
“Welchor’s a crook, Joan. He’s taking advantage of 
your father. Do believe me. It’s your father that I’m 
thinking of. Be careful what you say or you will tie 
my hands. But try to be around when your father talks. 
You can write—” 

With a look of withering scorn the girl brushed sud- 
3i 



ZR WINS! 


denly by. At the door she stopped and held out her hand 
to the newcomer. 

Thorne Welchor, man about town, cosmopolite, globe 
trotter and woman fancier, was certainly gifted with 
personality even though detestable at heart. His manner 
was full of grace; his grooming was that of a prince; 
his bearing assured, and at the same time by no means 
presuming. Yet there was to the discerning eye a hint 
of furtiveness in his inscrutability; a dash of bestiality 
in his florid features; a taint of utter ruthlessness in his 
rather overdone suavity. That he had been able to reach 
Joan past the hard-headed man of the world, her father, 
was really a credit to his ingenuity. 

“Why, hello, Eppley!” he threw with disconcerting 
candor at the young officer. “They tell me you aren’t 
going with the dirigible after all.” Bliss noted the spark 
of malice in his smooth voice. 

“May I ask who told you the news?” he countered. 

With a smile and wink at Joan, Welchor facetiously 
replied: “Oh, a little fairy, sir. Have you one in your 
home ?” 

“But have you heard the real news?” put in Joan, scent¬ 
ing trouble. “Mr. Eppley is going to Alaska, too.” 
Though her tone was conversational a stony glitter in her 
eyes told Bliss her interest in his fate was, for the time 
being at least, but social subterfuge. 

Had Welchor been struck in the face his expression 
could not have changed more violently. For half a pulse 
beat his vaunted self-control completely abandoned him. 
Joan, smiling on the young officer she had become so fond 
of, did not catch the older man’s sudden surrender to an 
inner conflagration. But Bliss glancing guiltily up caught 
squarely the blade of Welchor’s dark suspicion. 

“Yes,” he corroborated the girl’s innocent betrayal of 
32 



A WARNING 


his plans, “I’m going to Alaska, too. Shall I see you 
there, Mr. Welchor?” 

At the question Joan’s look swung back. But before it 
reached the other’s face his crisis had passed, and his for¬ 
mer smiling ingratiation asserted itself. With a clever 
presumption of utter ignorance on her part of anything 
behind the curtain of the obvious he said courteously: 

“Miss Beckett, we two shall combine to keep you in¬ 
formed of all the fascinating preparations and the thrilling 
details of the start of the greatest race the world has ever 
known.” 

Though the speech was coolly made, Bliss’s sharp ears 
caught the deeper menace of its tone. 

How completely Joan had missed the truth behind 
Bliss Eppley’s stand against his rival was evidenced at 
dinner with her father that night. 

“Saw your friend the Lieutenant this afternoon,” ob¬ 
served the Admiral cautiously. 

“He said you did, Daddy.” There was a little sharp 
note in the girl’s voice that made the other look up. She 
met the inquiry in his eyes with a burst of speech that 
brought new color to her cheeks. “He said something 
else, too, which changed my mind. I thought I was crazy 
about him. Now I believe I was mistaken.” 

“Told you his troubles, did he?” The Admiral’s 
smooth brow became faintly furrowed. 

“No. It was the way he spoke of Mr. Welchor. I like 
Thorne Welchor. I believe he is really in love with me. 
But most of all I am convinced that he is a gentleman. 
Never for an instant would he think of saying rotten 
things about another beau of mine behind his back. 
Which is what Bliss did.” A pout, then a determined 
thinning of her lips as was her father’s habit, attested to 
the firmness of Joan’s words. 

33 



ZR WINS! 


“So you showed him the door?” queried the Admiral 
with secret elation. 

“I showed him more than that. I made it plain that 
I cannot bear a man who won’t play fair.” 

“Quite right, my charming daughter!” Smiling, Ad¬ 
miral Beckett crunched a hazelnut to bits. 



CHAPTER IV 
THE FIRST DISASTER 


W E LIVE in an age of movement. We travel over 
the land and under water. Our speed is com¬ 
mensurate with the intensity of our purpose. 
We dash to trains. We grab taxis. We rush madly for 
the nearest subway. We telegraph for reservations on 
the fastest ships. Our whole lives become imbued with 
a spirit of speed. 

In the excitement of departure, Bliss found his swift 
journey across the continent in keeping with the thrill of 
the great adventure on which he was embarked. The five 
days towards Seattle gave him an opportunity to check up 
on his equipment, to go over the details and figures which 
had been supplied by the State Department, and to make 
plans for his stay on the north coast of Alaska, the start¬ 
ing point of the great transpolar flight. 

He realized with keen satisfaction that despite the fact 
he would not have air transportation, which circumstances 
granted to participants in the race, and to the scoundrels 
who sought to bring calamity upon these participants, that 
he still had ample time to reach Point Barrow before the 
main flight could possibly start. 

In Seattle he found the little Alaskan steamer loading 
at the dock. This delay gave him time to add to his 
meager baggage a competent outfit of timberjack cloth¬ 
ing. The value of this forethought soon was evident. 
For ten days later in the upper reaches of the Alaskan 
Gulf cold blasts from the Bering Straits struck down 
35 


ZR WINS! 


upon the diminutive vessel and shot an icy screen across 
her heaving decks. 

Through the wind-torn Aleutians, up across fog-bound 
Bering Sea, and into the black waters of Norton Sound, 
the little coasting steamer pushed her way. At Nome 
Bliss got his first sight of the true arctic. The famous 
frontier town presented a ragged appearance after the 
misery of its long arctic winter. And the motley crowd 
of sailors, lumbermen, traders, Indians, and Eskimos that 
straggled down to the dock gave him some inkling in their 
weather-worn faces of what he might expect from the 
rigors of such a climate. 

Almost at once the word was noised about that further 
progress would be impossible. An impassable jam of 
ice had been brought down from the Polar Sea just to 
the northward of Nome by a recent northeast gale. Local 
authorities declared that the ship could make no further 
progress to the north for at least three weeks. Such a 
late season had not been witnessed for years. Word had 
come down from the whaling fleet that ice conditions were 
the worst that had ever been seen. 

Bliss realized at once that in order to assure the suc¬ 
cess of his own plans he dare not wait for the ship. He 
learned that a party of reindeer herders, which had been 
organized for overland crossing, was about to start. He 
seized the opportunity and joined them. This aspect of 
the Alaskan country he had not before realized. It 
brought home to him emphatically the great future of 
arctic aviation. 

“Didn’t you know,” the head driver, a brawny Dane 
who had been in the Klondike rush, asked him, “that 
within twenty years we shall be able to supply the entire 
United States with fresh meat?” 

“You mean reindeer?” 

“Assuredly,” said the driver. “The original thousand 

36 



THE FIRST DISASTER 


animals which were imported only a few years ago as 
an experiment have increased already to the enormous 
number of three hundred thousand. From this herd it is 
estimated that the annual output of carcasses in twenty 
years will be well above a million.” 

“A million beeves!” 

“Indeed, Mr. Eppley, we shall live to see the reindeer 
as one of the world’s chief sources of meat supply. Al¬ 
ready in Norway and Sweden tons of reindeer steaks are 
eaten every year. Last spring fifteen hundred reindeer 
carcasses were shipped to New York by way of San Fran¬ 
cisco and the Panama Canal. The meat sold as low as 
thirty-five cents a pound.” 

Musing on these facts and figures there came to Eppley 
a thrilling visualization of Alaska the great packing center 
of North America. As he recalled Seward’s check for 
seven million dollars that Russia once accepted with avid¬ 
ity for her so-called worthless northern province, he 
smiled. Alaska’s gold was not all in her mines. The 
silver horde of salmon that each spring assailed her shores, 
teeming reindeer herds grazing upon her limitless pas¬ 
tures, her thickly timbered mountain ranges, all repre¬ 
sented a staggering total beyond the power of man to 
figure. 

The two-weeks’ sledging trip overland proved an acid 
test to Bliss’s endurance and physical strength. Bitter 
winds drove across the northern tundra, howled down 
through mountain passes, and swept the still unmelted 
snow in swirling clouds about the little party. The hardy 
drivers took scant notice of the cold; yet like the tender¬ 
foot, they, too, suffered from the wind. Faces of all be¬ 
came streaked with frostbite and turned dark red by end¬ 
less blustering wind and driven snow. 

Down the valley of the Meade River the landscape 
gradually took on a different aspect. The watershed 

37 



ZR WINS! 


dipped now towards the Polar Basin. High mountains 
became less frequent. Low rolling tundra characteristic 
of the drifted treeless regions of the “Barrens” spread 
bleakly northward. Never had Bliss seen so desolate an 
outlook. No living thing in sight. No birds nor flowers 
nor vegetation of any sort. For summer heat had not 
yet brought its brief crop of hardy arctic plants and 
insects. Over it all hung a low menacing ceiling of heavy 
gray clouds that from time to time disgorged themselves 
of fat slow-falling snowflakes. 

Bliss had his first sight of the Polar Sea as the little 
caravan swung down into Pearl Bay just to the west¬ 
ward of Point Barrow. The morning had cleared and 
the wind dropped. As far north as the eye could see 
spread the blue-white mass of the great polar pack. Near 
by huge floes upturned by tidal pressure had flung them¬ 
selves landward in murderous assault upon the helpless 
coast. Beyond them long crumbling ridges of gigantic 
ice cakes marked the limit of the continental shelf. And 
still beyond, for miles without an end, lay the broad un¬ 
broken floes that ground their jagged edges in helpless 
anguish one against the other, clear to the shores of 
Europe more than two thousand miles away. 

Late that afternoon rounding a sharp headland Bliss 
found himself suddenly confronted by a large sign on 
which had been painted the legend: 

EAGLE CAMP 

Beyond it, he saw what told him he had reached the end 
of his long hard journey. 

All entries for the great transpolar derby had arrived. 
Just as United States aviators had been permitted to use 
Newfoundland as a base for starting their transatlantic 
flight, so now the Government had with proper sports- 

38 



THE FIRST DISASTER 


manship granted free hangar space for any foreign ad¬ 
venturers of the air. Their planes had been shipped in 
sections by the early boat to Nome and their pilots had 
thence completed the lap to Barrow in a single hop. 

Eppley’s first impression was the remarkable contrast 
between the highly organized aeronautic invaders and the 
original northern community. Skin-clad arctic aborigines 
mingled with white mechanics dressed in well-fitting Bur- 
burry wind-proofs. Eskimo igloos of snow and drift¬ 
wood stood cheek-by-jowl with trim, little machine-cut 
cabins of pine and tarred paper. And, most amazing of 
all, a snarling dog-team stood hitched to a real blubber- 
loaded native sledge in the lee of a towering structure 
large enough to house the inhabitants of a dozen such 
settlements as this. From this enormous edifice, he saw 
with a thrill, protruding the blunt nose of the ZR-5. 

Somehow or other the dirigible looked more gigantic 
than ever in her new environment. Bliss knew she was 
over 900 feet long and 120 feet in diameter; and that, 
despite the miraculous lightness of her integral parts, she 
weighed over 100,000 pounds. But these enormous di¬ 
mensions were necessary, he recalled, in order to include 
her 30 large gas-cells which were filled with noninflam¬ 
mable helium. These “balloonettes” were made of a 
strange substance known as gold-beater’s skin, fabricated 
from the blind-gut of an ox. To manufacture the single 
covering before him over one million oxen were repre¬ 
sented ! 

His eyes wandering from the wonderful airship, he 
noted the relatively diminutive hangars that housed the 
airplane entries of France, England, Belgium, and Nor¬ 
way. Each he recognized by its national flag. One 
flaunting the Stars and Stripes he took to be that of the 
knave Welchor and his gang. This hangar, he observed 

39 



ZR WINS! 


with misgiving, was situated nearest the ZR-5’s great 
shed. 

From every hand came sounds of intense activity. 
Roar of motors being tested, hum of machine tools, shouts 
of men, and the flapping of innumerable canvas tarpau¬ 
lins, mingled to create an overtone of relentless determi¬ 
nation to wrest the North’s last secret from out its icy 
maw. That men of one race might be ahead of another 
the crews of individual units were vying desperately to 
assure. 

While his late companions carried his small baggage 
to one of the native huts in which he had for various 
reasons determined to quarter himself, Bliss wandered 
closer to American headquarters. Weatherworn and 
dirty as he was after his long sledge trip, no one paid the 
slightest attention to him, apparently taking him for a 
vagrant native. 

At the gaping entrance to the ZR’s shed he paused 
spellbound. Like some tamed mammoth the air giant lay 
quietly in her refuge while half a hundred men swarmed 
anxiously over her. Her nose pointed directly northward 
as if she were impatient to be away. 

Every man seemed to be dashing aimlessly about, or 
pecking with inexplicable annoyance at some part or 
other of the huge dirigible. Yet well Bliss knew that 
every officer and sailor in the crew had his particular task 
to do and his small allotment of time in which to do it. 

A bit inside the entrance he spied Me Alford talking 
earnestly to Captain Devon, the dirigible’s commanding 
officer. The latter was a small and insignificant-looking 
man clad in an oil-grimed denim uniform. Except for 
his officer’s cap a casual visitor would have put him down 
as a messenger boy, or an ineffectual helper of some sort. 
Yet of all the best brains and most able naval men who had 
applied for the coveted command the little Irishman, 
40 



THE FIRST DISASTER 


David Devon, had been the only one who fully filled the 
bill. 

“I don’t understand it 1” Bliss heard him say. 

McAlford cupped his hands before replying. “Further 
aft, you dumb-bells!” he roared upward to the group of 
pigmy workmen clambering along the leviathan’s back. 
He turned to his Captain. “No, sir, I don’t either. Fact, 
I was up there last night.” 

A petty officer came up and saluted. “Looks queer to 
me. Cap n, Bliss saw him point to the airship’s nose. 

Right there, bout frame four, is another of them cuts.” 
The speaker shook his head. “Wastes time, Cap’n, valu¬ 
able time, foolin’ with such repairs.” 

Bliss edged a little closer. The moment for making 
known his presence was certainly of his own choosing. 
If by picking up a hint or two before any one were aware 
of his arrival he could gain a better understanding of cir¬ 
cumstances, he felt he was well justified in doing so. Any¬ 
way, with the gossiping natives about, it was but a ques¬ 
tion of minutes before the whole settlement would know 
of the stranger in town. Furthermore, the fact that a 
white man had chosen to abide with an Eskimo rather 
than with his own breed would arouse additional curios¬ 
ity. But he had determined to accept this handicap 
rather than join the naval contingent among whom he 
could not hope to be welcome after the disagreeable 
rumors Welchor had been able to spread about Washing¬ 
ton before his departure. 

Again Scotty boomed directions aloft. “Now on with 
your lashings!” He made a graphic gesture. “Good 
boy!” Bliss could see the men respond nobly on their 
giddy perch. 

“Now a boatswain’s chair,” prompted the Skipper. 

“A line on him!” paraphrased McAlford in lusty tones. 

The workers twisted and spread as one man crept for- 
4i 



ZR WINS! 


ward. Then from their midst came a threadlike strand 
on the end of which dangled a sailor. Breathlessly Bliss 
watched the dangerous proceeding. Surely this fearless 
crew earned their stipend for the day’s toil. 

“Easy! There she is!” bawled McAlford. 

Two men at the top stooped to secure the rope which 
supported their mate in his perilous position. As they 
did so, from the opposite side of the great shed came a 
loud cry: 

“Fire!” 

Bliss’ heart leaped. While the helium contained in the 
ZR-5 was not inflammable he knew there was present in 
the engine tanks, and in the shed itself, enough gasoline 
to make a disastrous conflagration. 

Practically all the crew were gathered around Cap¬ 
tain Devon and the Chief Engineer watching fearfully 
the dangerous task in which the suspended man over¬ 
head was temporarily engaged. Now, at the cry of 
“Fire!” all dashed to their stations for such an emergency. 

On top the dirigible the riggers, having secured the 
one overside, made their way forward to catch a glimpse 
of the excitement; possibly to be prepared to do their 
part, if necessary, to save the precious craft. 

His foot lifted in obedience to his natural impulse to 
join the rush across the great shed’s graveled floor, Bliss 
paused horror-stricken. Along the ZR~5’s dome he saw 
a crouching figure run. At the point where was secured 
the line by which dangled the unsuspecting sailor the 
figure stopped. The next instant and rising above the 
tumult of the fire a piercing scream echoed through the 
cavernous interior of the great shelter. Slipping slowly 
at first and clutching frantically at a flimsy shred of canvas 
near one seam, the doomed sailor slid down over the bulg¬ 
ing body of the airship. 

With a feeling of utter nausea at the sight Bliss stood 
42 



THE FIRST DISASTER 


rooted to the spot. He was too far away to possibly have 
saved the poor fellow. He shut his eyes as with a ghastly 
thud the body struck. 

When the new excitement had calmed somewhat Bliss 
took rapid account of the strange sequence of events he 
had just witnessed. First, the fire, which had turned out 
only to have been a fake: a blowtorch overturned near 
some excelsior that had been left carelessly about. 
Second, the incredibly bold attempt to murder one of the 
ZR’s crew, which apparently had failed as the Medical 
Officer who happened in had at once announced that the 
man was not fatally injured. And third, Captain Devon’s 
quick notice of the fact that the rope had been cut. 

“Looks like an enemy in camp, sir,” was Scotty’s wor¬ 
ried comment. 

To which, after a moment of scowling reflection the 
Skipper had replied: 

“Help the Medico all you can, McAlford. I’m going 
over to see Thorne Welchor. He knows every one in 
camp and is the only one I trust to advise me in such a 
mess.” 

Hearing which Bliss turned away to avoid being seen, 
and with a heavy heart made his way to his Eskimo 
friend, Matluk, with whom he had made arrangements to 
live. 



CHAPTER V 
THE ENEMY STRIKES 

B LISS shared a frugal supper of boiled caribou 
meat and tea with his Eskimo host. When Mat- 
luk had cleaned up about three pounds of the ten¬ 
der venison and had topped off with several lumps of raw 
flesh, which he lubricated down his throat with strips of 
white seal blubber, Bliss sent him with a note to McAlford. 

Scotty arrived at a dramatic moment. Navranna’s 
baby had crawled over to the little oil stove with an idea 
of exploring the fascinating yellow flame that wavered 
above it. just as footsteps sounded at the doorway the 
infant emitted a piercing scream. The terrified mother 
sprang from her couch of skins, knocking over a pot of 
caribou blood. Bliss tried to avert further disaster by 
grabbing at the lamp which was teetering on its stand. 
But his foot slipped in the spreading stream of gore and 
he landed in a sitting position with little islands of burn¬ 
ing oil scattered all about him. 

Scotty peered in upon the scene with blinking eyes. 
Twice he opened his mouth to speak. But speech seemed 
to fall too far short of expressing his emotions. He stood 
silent and aghast. 

“Come right in, old topi” laughed Bliss. “This is just 
our little after-dinner game of Eskimo Mali Jonggl” 
“Huh?” snorted the still astonished Scotty. “Looks as 
if some one has punged all right, all right ! You don’t 
expect me to come into this pigsty, do you?” 

“Not if you don’t want to. But please be as nice as 
44 


THE ENEMY STRIKES 


you can about if, because these are particular friends of 
mine and that morsel of brown putty you sec before you 
is the boarding-house k/'/'j/^r's daughter/' 

With tears still glistening on its oily cheeks the “mor¬ 
sel" held its arms out to the newcomer, 

“'/here you go!" cried Bliss delightedly, “The ladies 
always did fall for you!" 

Whereupon the big man surrendered with what grace 
he could manage and vdth a somewhat gingerly touch 
mounted the little savage on his knee //here she sat smil¬ 
ing and gurgle/1 an unintelligible jargon hopefully into 
his fat face. Meanwhile Navranna hustled about and 
reset the stove in order that a cup of hot tea might give 
the enormous white man a better idea of the native’s 
hospitality, 

“Well, you got here, I see/' said Scotty, not taking his 
eyes off the fascinating “boarding-house keeper’s 
daughter," 

Bliss glanced through the windov/ toward the little 
tar-papered shack where lay the maimed body of the un¬ 
fortunate victim of the afternoon's disaster. For a mo¬ 
ment there courted through his mind a shuddering real z 
tion of the extent to which men’s avarice will sometimes 
take them. The injure/1 sailor would never walk again, 
so the doctor had said. And he ha/1 both wife and chil¬ 
dren, Up to the moment of his fall he had been a happy 
industrious American bluejacket. Now for the remain¬ 
ing years of his life he must be a ward of the govern¬ 
ment, his loved ones an object of charity, 

“And they think Fm crazy!" Bliss mused. Looking 
up he said; “Yes, X got here, just in time," 

“You sure did," agree/! Scotty promptly, missing com¬ 
pletely the true meaning of his friend’s words, “Two 
planes ought to get away tit the morning. The ZR is all 
ready except a waterjacket on the fore port engine, 

45 



ZR WINS! 


Twelve hours’ work perhaps. Things are going to sizzle 
from now on!” 

Seeing a strained look on the engineer’s face Bliss sug¬ 
gested a walk up the low hill behind the settlement. “I’d 
like to have a look around and see the lay of the land,” 
he explained. Scotty accepted the plan with avidity. 

“You bet. In fact, I’d like to start now if you don’t 
mind. This perfume your friends have is sort of getting 
next to me.” 

On the way up Bliss steered the talk into discussion 
of what had gone on so far in the camps. 

“Just work,” puffed the fat man. “Slave drivers 
we’ve all gotten to be. The weather is still too unsettled 
for much flying. But every entry has been able to make 
at least one test hop out over the ice.” 

“What do you do in your hours off?” 

“They’re not many of them. But when we do have 
a bit of time in the evening we usually go over to Wel- 
chor’s shack, where he has about all there is in this country 
to make a man contented. Plenty of tobacco and books 
and a little music on the side. Once a week he gives us 
a big feed and has the natives in to sing. He had a whole 
shipload of stuff sent up on the early boat.” 

Scotty paused breathless. When his lungs caught up 
with themselves he exclaimed: “Hang it, I forgot that 
you and Thorne Welchor are after the same girl!” 

“Careful, Scotty,” warned Bliss. “You’re treading on 
dangerous ground.” 

“Don’t care if I am! I’m certainly a good enough 
friend of yours to tell you I don’t like the rumor I’ve 
heard that you’re trying to get something on Welchor 
in order to further your suit with Joan Beckett.” 

Dropping behind Bliss fought his anger until he had it 
under control. Then with studied nonchalance: 

46 



THE ENEMY STRIKES 


“Has Captain Devon fallen for Welchor too?” he 
asked. 

“Don’t like the way you put it,” came the prompt retort. 

“All right. How’s this? Are Captain Devon and Mr. 
Welchor very friendly?” 

“If they’re not they ought to be. The Skipper never 
had a better friend in his life than Welchor. Don’t know 
what he’d have done in the strain of the Dast weeks if he 
hadn’t been able to turn to some one who really under¬ 
stood and sympathized.” 

“But don’t the other officers of the ZR do that?” 

“Of course not. Matter of discipline in the first place. 
And second, the Skipper is only too glad to be rid of 
us after sixteen hours of grind through the day.” 

For the remainder of the climb Bliss was occupied with 
his own thoughts. Scotty, either through pure breath¬ 
lessness or because he Was thoroughly put out with his 
friend, plodded along in disconsolate silence. 

At the summit of the hill they paused for breath. 
Spread out before them, northward lay the gently sloping 
apron of the Cape. Perhaps a quarter of a mile away and 
several hundred feet below them straggled the dirty brown 
jumble of habitations that marked the village. The plane 
hangars stood out sharply against their darker back¬ 
ground. The huge mass of the dirigible shed towered 
high enough to cut a rectangular bite from the white ice 
beyond. 

Far into the mysterious north spread the dreary waste 
of the Polar Sea. Its pressure ridges and old wind-cut 
bergs were edged with pink from the midnight sun now 
rolling along the northern horizon. Northeastwards a 
water sky blurred the deep azure that surrounded it. 
Directly north hung, like a fairy veil, a faint mist, as if 
guarding the secrets of the pack. 

For a bit both men were silent. Something of the 

47 



ZR WINS! 


vastness and the mystery of the Far North for the mo¬ 
ment permeated their consciousness; something of the 
realization of their smallness and their weakness against 
the immeasurable forces that had created this torn land 
and limitless sea, both so scarred from exposure to the 
ruthless elements. 

Np sound broke the unearthly stillness of the evening. 
Once a dog yelped. Again the faint throbbing of a 
native drum told where the superstitious Eskimos were 
exhorting their queer gods to grant them safety from the 
innumerable perils of the North. 

Bliss drew his binoculars from their case and leveling 
them against a rock scrutinized the village. Scotty, pal¬ 
pably bored and still uncooled from his recent angry 
discourse, lit his inevitable cigar and moved nervously 
about. Suddenly the former turned. 

“Scotty, old horse, what am I to do!” he cried. “Be¬ 
fore I left Washington I learned that Welchor and Scam- 
mell were being paid for interfering with the ZR-5 as 
well as all these planes. The crooks have been promised 
a huge sum for final success of their deviltry. Indeed, 
their expenses have been covered to an extent that makes 
it possible for them to buy not only the friendship and 
the trust of our officers, but even the honor of the weaker 
characters among the crews. Their motive is pure gain. 
Pure selfish profit without regard to its cost to others. 
Their single object is to wreck all official entries and to 
make the flight themselves.”' 

“Suppose they do,” retorted McAlford. “They are 
Americans. They gain the glory for the United States 
if they are across first just as well as the ZR-5 would.” 

Fumbling in his pocket Bliss drew out a bit of yellow 
paper and handed it across to his friend. “Read that!” 
he commanded. 


48 



THE ENEMY STRIKES 


“ ‘Velchorski/ ” muttered the other. ‘‘What does that 
mean? Code world?” 

“Code word, my aunt! It’s your friend Welchor’s 
real name! He’s no more American than one of those 
Eskimos. A good deal less, in fact. He came from 
Vladivostok in the beginning. He’s got a long record of 
skulduggery behind him. And he is wanted by the police 
of three countries!” 

“This is good information?” 

When his friend did not reply Scotty glanced around 
to find him frozen in his tracks glaring with a startled 
expression towards the village. The next instant he 
sprang past on the trail and set off at a dead run in the 
direction of Matluk’s igloo. 

Even before Bliss reached his dwelling place he realized 
what must have happened. Having heard of his arrival, 
Welchor’s gang had undoubtedly broken into his baggage 
in order to investigate the papers he carried. Fortunately 
there was nothing that would be of any value to them, save 
perhaps the marked muster roll of the crews, and some 
detailed lists of spare parts, fuel requirements, and so on. 
Such data he had thought it necessary to bring in order 
to keep himself posted on the conspirator’s probable move¬ 
ments. Anything that might connect him with the State 
Department he had destroyed or kept sewed in the lining 
of his coat. 

Welchor’s mechanic, Scammell, faced him at the door. 

With no pretense at courtesy Bliss met angrily the ugly 
looks of American, French and British mechanics gath¬ 
ered around. 

“By what right have you entered this house? And 
what are you doing with my papers?” he demanded. 

Scammell grimaced as he turned for justification to 
the rough-clad men about him. “Guess you ought to 
know, Mr. Eppley. And I think maybe there’ll be some 
49 



ZR WINS! 


questions for you to answer when we turn in this stuff 
we’ve found in your bag.” 

In two strides Bliss reached him and snatched the com¬ 
promising documents from his hand. Taken aback for a 
moment Scammell stood stupidly and gaped. Then with 
a thick oath he sprang forward swinging a wicked fist 
aimed at Eppley’s chin. But the blow never landed. 
With a neat duck Bliss avoided. Uppercutting swiftly 
with his free hand he lifted the scoundrel at least a foot 
in the air to fall heavily and half stunned upon the gravel. 

Instantly the others rushed in. Whereupon Matluk, 
with his wife and baby, who had been standing nearby in 
nervous apprehension, fled precipitately, all screaming the 
Eskimo equivalent for, “Murder! Help! Fire! Police!” 

From every igloo and shack heads began to pop out. 
Dogs commenced to bark and yelp. The bedlam became 
general. All of which was natural enough when it is 
remembered that with the absence of movies, band con¬ 
certs, balls, and other forms of common entertainment, 
a good rousing fight was the chief delight of this isolated 
community. 

Shoving the papers inside his shirt Bliss set his teeth 
and met his adversaries with both fists swinging. A 
second man went down almost at once. But the blow so 
overbalanced him that a Frenchman rushing from behind 
caught him unawares and knocked him spinning. The 
next moment Bliss also hit the gravel with three husky 
brutes atop him. 

How he would have fared in the bout is a matter of 
speculation. Fortunately, we may assume, there sounded 
at that critical moment the sharp command of an officer. 
At once the attackers loosed their holds and grudgingly 
abandoned their prey to higher authority. Bliss rose and 
found himself looking into the irritated countenance of 
the diminutive commander of the ZR-5, Captain David 
50 



THE ENEMY STRIKES 


Devon, United States Navy. The recognition was 
mutual. 

“Good evening, sir,” said Bliss, saluting. ‘Tm 
sorry—” 

The Captain held up his hand. “Enough, Mr. Eppley.” 
Turning to Scammell, he said: “May I ask why five 
men have to attack one ? I have gone on record as being 
in favor of fighting, not assassination.” 

The bloody-nosed Scammell hung his head. “It’s not 
our fault, sir. He knocked me down and took some 
papers away from me.” 

“My own,” put in Bliss calmly, and held out the 
crumpled sheets. 

Captain Devon shot them a glance. “What are you 
doing with these figures?” he asked in quick suspicion. 

Before Bliss could reply Scammel blurted: “He’s a 
dirty spy, sir! Names of the crews—!” 

“Stop!” roared the Captain. “I won’t have any such 
talk in my camp! Remember that this land is for the 
time being under my full jurisdiction. You have attacked 
an officer of the United States Navy. If you have any 
charges to prefer against him do so in the proper way. 
Now clear out all of you!” Turning to Bliss he added 
sternly: “And I shall expect you to do your part in 
observing camp regulations.” 

“Aye, aye, sir,” murmured Bliss obediently. 

Camp regulations with a crook like Thorne Welchor 
around! The thought was vastly entertaining. . . . 



CHAPTER VI 
FOUL PLAY 


ONG before the sun had begun its upward swing 



the big camp was astir. Not that the work on the 


" ^ ZR-5 or any of the planes had for a moment ceased 
since the day before. Hut tired night gangs now relin¬ 
quished their tools to their fresh workers and the inces¬ 
sant chattering and hammering and clanking of half a 
thousand feverish mechanics began anew. For this was 
the day of days. 

Rumor had it that the Frenchman would get off first 
But judging from the roar of warming motors in both 
the British, Belgian and Norwegian hangars, there were 
going to be some close seconds in the hop. 

Without hesitation Bliss made his way towards Wel- 
chor’s shed. There seemed to be a suspicious absence of 
activity there. Moreover, he realized that the ixiir of 
scoundrels in charge of it would be the focus of whatever 
villainy might come to pass, 

“Look who’s here!” yelled Welchor to his mechanic as 
Bliss rounded the corner of the shack. 

Scamtuell, with a purpled eye decorating his dirty face, 
came scowling to the door, 

“Good morning, my melodramatic young friend,” said 
Welchor with mock affability, “So you figured you 
could get away with murder in this camp!” 

Bliss prayed for strength to prevent the speaker from 
committing the real crime with which his metaphor toyed. 
Aloud he evaded the issue. 



FOUL PLAY 


“Your mechanic seems to have gathered himself a 
shiner.” 

Welchor laughed. “Poor old Scammell. He’s not 
much in a free-for-all. But he’s right there in a pinch. 
Eh, Scam?” 

Disregarding his henchman’s angry snort he went on : 
“By the way, Scammell, remember the little skirt I told 
you about? May be the Missus one of these days.” 

“Huh!” growled the other. But at a wink from his 
master he shot a knowing look at the slowly reddening 
Eppley. 

Welchor pulled an envelope from his pocket. “Nice 
girl, Scam. Peach. Writes a sweet letter too. Listen to 
this. ‘Thorne Dear!’ Not ‘Dear Thorne,’ Scam, old 
bone, but ‘Thorne Dear.’ ” 

A slight sound escaped Bliss. Blood sang in his ears. 
For a moment he was undecided whether to turn and 
leave with dignity or stay and knock Welchor’s teeth down 
his throat. As a compromise he said with what coldness 
his throttled fury would permit: 

“You dirty liar, you!” 

Welchor sprang to his feet. For several seconds he 
appeared about to rush the man before him. Then 
abruptly his head went back and a harsh laugh pealed 
out. “Oh, hear the puppy bark!” he chortled. “Scam¬ 
mell, listen to the little fellow yelp!” 

A sudden booming roar smote the air. The French¬ 
man’s engines had been opened full. Welchor’s laughter 
was swept aside in a new emotion. His face drew taut 
and hard. His hands clenched. He swung upon Bliss. 

“So you’re still of the mind you will interfere with 
me, are you?” he bellowed to make himself heard above 
the tumult. “All right, you young fool, I’ll show you 
what I can do!” He swept an arm towards the plane 
now tugging at her moorings. “Watch her!” 

53 



ZR WINS! 


Swiftly word flew through the camp that the French 
entry was ready. Despite the preciousness of time all 
hands at once knocked off work to see the start. Chagrin 
tempered their silent admiration as they gathered. For 
despite their frenzied toil they had failed to win the 
coveted advantage of being first to leave. Should the 
French entry make only her designed speed and edur- 
ance, ultimate success must attend her pilot’s efficiency 
of preparation. 

The weather now brightened to a crystalline incan¬ 
descence. Facets of myriad ice crystals reflected the bril¬ 
liant sunshine. For once the great ice pack to north¬ 
ward seemed quiescent. Lazy skua gulls soared grace¬ 
fully over its nubbled surface. A black spot just beyond 
the tide crack betokened a fat seal basking in the warm 
sun. 

The French entry was a graceful cruising Fokker mon¬ 
oplane, twin-engined, and equipped with both wheels and 
pontoons so that she might land on either ice or water. 
Two pilots sat in her, one behind the other. This was 
necessary. For despite the average speed of one hundred 
and fifty miles an hour it was expected the plane would 
make, the distance of two thousand five hundred miles to 
Nprth Cape across the top of the globe required an un¬ 
broken flight of nearly twenty hours. 

The roar suddenly ceased. Final instructions were 
given. Tired mechanics gave a last swift scrutiny to 
struts and bolts and wings. A tiny bag of dispatches for 
the President of France from the President of the United 
States was handed aboard. Some one darted out with a 
last word of advice. Captain Devon added a touch of 
sentiment by stepping in front of the silent onlookers and 
leading a cheer for the intrepid Frenchmen. As the 
echoes died away he signaled with his hand to the com- 
54 



FOUL PLAY 


munity band. There broke upon the crisp morning air the 
stirring notes of the Marseillaise. 

A lump came into Bliss’s throat. For a moment he 
forgot his disappointment that it was not the ZR-5. 
After all they were human beings, flesh and blood like 
himself, with hopes and fears, joys and sorrows. After 
all, he reflected, it would not make any great difference 
if the Frenchmen won. For the ultimate goal of this 
great effort was basically man’s conquest of the world. 
Besides, who could appreciate more deeply the glory of 
such achievement than romantic France? She had not 
had her fair share of polar exploration. Too many ene¬ 
mies had thronged the pathway of her destiny. 

A crescendo of sound effaced the singing. The pilot 
raised one hand. Slowly the slim plane rolled away from 
its level, slipped swiftly down with gathering speed, then 
soared out and up over the great unconquered pack 
towards the Pole. 

A kind of exultation swept over Bliss. 

He had failed. The ZR-5 had not been first to start 
as he had hoped. But the arch fiends whose unscrupulous¬ 
ness he so had dreaded had been unable to stay the heroic 
Frenchmen. 

“You think he’s away?” said a sneering voice at his 
elbow. “Just stay and watch him out of sight!” Wel- 
chor chuckled and rubbed his chin. “That is, if he gets 
out of sight.” 

He turned to Scammell. “You aren’t mistaken about 
that fellow’s carburetor are you?” 

“If I am,” came the grim reply, “a certain Frenchy’ll 
never see home again. And the best thing is, boss, that 
he knows it.” 

“You paid him?” 

“Sure I paid him. That’s the safest way. Then they 

55 



ZR WINS! 


daren’t back out. We’ve got the goods on them, as it 
were.” 

While Bliss stood puzzled, scarce knowing whether to 
believe the words he heard or not, a third man came up. 
He was a small furtive-looking creature, smaller and 
meaner looking even than Scammell. He held out to 
Welchor something that looked like a piece of soap with 
a dark fuming liquid in a slight depression at its center. 

“That right, boss?” he asked. 

Welchor sniffed cautiously at the liquid. 

“Full strength, Sam?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“All right, then. Slap it on the pudding when you get 
a chance. Only don’t tell my friend here.” 

Sam shot a frightened look at Eppley. 

“One of ’em, sir?” 

“Thinks he is,” sneered Welchor. Turning again to 
Scammell he inclined his head towards the rapidly shrink¬ 
ing French plane. “About right now, Scam,” he said, in 
what seemed to Bliss a threatening tone. “Remember, 
old pie-face, you’re the goat if she doesn’t tumble!” 

Scammell bent an anxious gaze upon the fast retreating 
plane. 

“You see, my young friend,” went on the other, “we 
can’t let her land too close. She could drop too nicely on 
this smooth foreshore. And we can’t let her get too far 
out, either. She might pass beyond the limit of the rough 
floes that lie near the coast, and that way also make a 
gentle drop to safety. Takes brains, Eppley, takes 
brains, I tell you.” 

Bliss could find no reply. What the man hinted was 
too incredible for belief. 

“There she goes!” whooped Scammell suddenly. “I 
told you so!” 

The monoplane had by this time gained an altitude of 

$6 



FOUL PLAY 


perhaps three thousand feet. She was several miles out 
over the ice pack. As Scammell shouted she seemed to 
hesitate. She dipped. She took a long curving swoop as 
if to volplane back to land. Her spinning propellers had 
stopped. No hum of life was wafted from her powerful 
motors. They had surrendered to the ingenuity of her 
enemies. The modified carburetors which had operated 
so smoothly at the take-off had, at the exact time Welchor 
intended failed to function. 

Like a wounded bird the great plane slithered down. 
She could not possibly make land. Below her spread a 
broad pasture of icy debris, declivitous pressure ridges, 
pinnacled bergs of old up-thrusts, knifelike seracs among 
the tide-torn smaller floes. Not one square yard of level 
area for a landing. 

Sickeningly she crashed. She capsized. Even at the 
distance at which she lay from camp her torn and broken 
wings were visible. She would never fly again. It would 
take a month to secure another plane. By that time . . . 

“Am I right?” said Welchor’s malicious voice. “Or 
am I wrong?” 

Bliss did not trust himself to speak. With murder in 
his heart he watched two distant figures on the ice slowly 
extricate themselves and stagger landward. Others from 
the camp ran out in fear and pity to console them. 

“And if you’re not convinced, perhaps we may arrange 
another little demonstration. Eh, Scammell?” 

Evil satisfaction at the spectacle of his success still 
lighted Scammell’s face. “You mean the little package 
we parked in Norway yesterday?” he asked. 

Even as he spoke a dull explosion rocked the earth. In 
the direction of the Norwegian biplane rose a cloud of 
black smoke. Focus of its origin was at the spot on 
which had stood the gasoline shed of Thorwaldsen the 
great explorer. In the twinkling of an eye this shed now 
57 



ZR WINS! 


disappeared. All that remained was a mass of twisted 
sheet metal and a drifting dust of fragments. 

“The joke of it all,” went on Welchor severely, “is that 
somehow or other the rumor has been going around camp 
that Thorwaldsen’s fuel was not high proof enough to 
warrant safety. His friends may not now say to him: 
‘We told you so !’ But they will think it. Eh, Scammell ?” 

Lighting a cigarette he placed it in a long curved holder 
of ivory and puffed placidly in open contentment at his 
work. 

“Is not my frankness admirable ?” he inquired. 

Contempt beyond all words marked Bliss’ grim reply: 

“Nothing is or ever could be admirable about you, 
Welchor!” 

“Ha! Ha! Hear that, Scammell? The puppy still 
barks!” His face darkened. “Now listen. Time is 
growing short. Two are out—the French and the Nor¬ 
wegian. This afternoon—a little luck—the Belgian goes. 
Your bloated dirigible comes last. By that time we shall 
be ready to leave. Eh, Scammell? But I’m not going 
to risk my plans by having you around.” 

The speaker raised a thick finger for emphasis. 

“It does not meet my present wishes to harm you, 
Eppley. Not that I wouldn’t enjoy breaking your fool 
young neck. And I may yet,” he added with quick anger. 
“But at present I prefer simply to get you out of the way. 
A couple of Eskimos are leaving for Eagle City in the 
south at noon. You will go with them. Make any 
excuse to your friends you like for your sudden depar¬ 
ture. But if you value your thin hide, go!” 

A sudden happy thought seemed to strike the speaker. 
He showed his teeth in a sardonic smile. 

“And by the way, don’t bother to look up Miss 
Beckett when you get back. She is coming up here. She 
writes that with her father’s consent she is learning to 

58 



FOUL PLAY 


fly. He has been permitted by the Navy Department to 
visit the camp with one of the Coast Guard vessels as 
soon as the ice clears. By the time you reach Washing¬ 
ton your dear little sweetheart will be smiling at me the 
way you ought to be this minute.” Doubling his fist 
Welchor shook it threateningly under Bliss’ nose. “And 
just let me add one final item, Eppley. I don’t care the 
snap of my fingers about a lot of things that mean a 
great deal to you. I have reason to believe that Miss 
Beckett wouldn’t say ‘no’ if I popped the question to her. 
And right here and now, before these witnesses, I swear 
that if you try to return after you leave here, or in any 
way you make further trouble for me, I’ll marry Joan 
Beckett the minute I get through with this flight! Under¬ 
stand?” 

To which Bliss, white lipped, replied: 

“No, you damned scoundrel, I don’t!” 

For which insolence Welchor, losing control, struck 
him with heavy open palm full across his defiant mouth. 



CHAPTER VII 

SHANGHAIED! 


N OW Bliss Eppley loved a good old-fashioned fight. 
He was an excellent boxer. And he was graced 
with that lithe tigerish sort of physique the suc¬ 
cessful middleweight always has. Welchor outweighed 
him. But the advantage was mostly fat. Moreover, 
Welchor’s tactics were obviously those of the bully who 
is motivated more by arrogant assurance of eventual vic¬ 
tory, than, as was the case with Eppley, by true joy of 
the combat itself. 

Bliss, half-crouched, advanced with caution, and braced 
himself for what promised to be a beautiful catapult¬ 
like impact of his right fist upon the coarse sneering 
mouth of the man who had insulted him. 

Then a strange thing happened. His crouch became 
a stoop, his balance an uncertainty. His clenched fists 
relaxed. His look of intense concentration upon the task 
in hand faded to an expression of ineffectual and wholly 
unbelligerent abstraction. 

Over Welchor’s shoulder he had caught a glimpse of 
the advancing figure of the creature Welchor called Sam. 
Sam was returning from the direction of the ZR-5. 
Sight of him even in this crisis sent a flash of memory 
through Bliss’s mind. Once during the war he had seen 
used exactly the same soaplike mass which Sam had shown 
to Welchor fifteen minutes ago. And the mass he had 
seen during the war had contained acid. Sam’s mass 
had contained something that looked like acid. A fum- 
60 


SHANGHAIED! 


ing liquid it had been. The device had been resorted to 
in 1917 by enemy spies to put engine boilers out of com¬ 
mission. The bit of putty was simply slapped on the 
boiler’s bottom, by an inconspicuous person at an incon¬ 
spicuous time. Some hours later the contained acid 
would have eaten through the boiler shell, permitting the 
hot water and steam inside to sizzle out and carry away 
the putty. Quietly the boiler would empty itself through 
the hole—unless the fireman was very much on guard. 
The fire would warp the dry tubes. And in the space of 
ten minutes or so the German cause would have one less 
valuable mechanism pitted against it. 

All of which takes time to explain, and for the un¬ 
initiated more time to understand. But Bliss’s whole men¬ 
tal process of recalling the fiendish device, linking its 
technic with Sam’s soaplike exhibit, and picturing its ap¬ 
plication to one of the fuel tanks of the ZR-5 in such a 
way that she would find herself suddenly out of gasoline 
about halfway across the Polar Sea—his entire cycle of 
ratiocination occupied about two flicks of the proverbial 
lamb’s tail. By the middle of the third flick he was on 
his way at a dead run towards the dirigible. 

“Well, I’ll be jiggered!” ejaculated Welchor, with some¬ 
thing of relief. “I thought the puppy had more guts than 
that!” Which shows how appearances sometimes de¬ 
ceive. For almost by the time the words were out of the 
bully’s mouth Bliss had drawn up sharply near the ZR’s 
shed and gasped to one of the crew: 

“Where’s Mr. McAlford?” 

Not a thought of Welchor’s threats. In fact, they had 
gone in one ear and out the other. The one vital thing 
now was to get hold of Scotty and insist that he imme¬ 
diately inspect every fuel tank and engine jacket for the 
small pat of soaplike putty that might end forever the 
ZR’s chances of reaching her destination. 

61 



ZR WINS! 


The big dirigible had been drawn out of her shed. By 
a score of lines she was anchored to the level space be¬ 
tween her stable and the sea-ice. In the light northerly 
breeze she tugged gently at her moorings. As if the 
divine spark of life had entered her vast bulk she lifted 
and quivered against the ropes that held her. 

The man pointed aloft. “Forward control car, I think, 
sir.” 

Bliss dashed for a rope ladder that dangled near by. 
Up its swinging rungs he clambered. A mechanic started 
forward as if to head off the grimy creature that had so 
suddenly taken the liberty of boarding his beloved airship. 
But something in Eppley’s prodigious haste checked him. 
He glanced around for a pursuer. When his surprised 
gaze swung back the trespasser had disappeared into the 
hatch overhead. 

The cavernous interior of the dirigible contained the 
thirty balloonettes, or gas-bag units filled with helium, 
which provided her lifting force. These bags were of 
silk and arranged symmetrically within the aluminum 
framework over which the outer sheath of gold-beater’s 
skin was drawn. So enormous were the craft’s dimen¬ 
sions that the elements of her metallic skeleton shrank in 
perspective to a fineness comparable to that of the fragile 
web of a butterfly’s wing. It seemed as if the sheer 
weight of her gossamer covering must crush the frail 
structure underneath. Yet so ingeniously had the tiny 
rods and struts been joined that every ounce of pressure 
was distributed throughout the length and breadth of the 
delicate skeleton. And so masterly had been man’s de¬ 
velopment of the patent metal duralumin, from which her 
main supports were forged, that the fiercest gales had so 
far failed to harm her. 

Between the gas bags stretched a narrow runway lead¬ 
ing the entire length of the ship. Standing upon this, 

62 



SHANGHAIED! 


one had the sensation of having entered a vast warehouse 
whose doming roof towered a hundred feet overhead. 
Contents of the warehouse were bulging gray globes of 
mammoth size which, though soft to the touch, gave the 
appearance of inner firmness. 

From far up among the silver threadlike rafters came 
the tap-tapping of a hammer. Echoes ebbed and flowed 
with musical cadence through the immense hollow cave 
below. 

Pausing for an instant with a thrill of amazement at 
the strange atmosphere in which he found himself, Bliss 
swept the marvelous sight with boundless admiration for 
the almost superhuman skill and ingenuity that had made 
the ZR possible. 

Then the burden of his mission pressed him on. Step¬ 
ping gingerly at first along the limber runway he soon 
found its strength like all else thereabouts was not in 
keeping with its length and breadth. He broke into a 
run. A hundred yards ahead, glimmering through the 
subdued light, he saw the flicker of reflected sunshine 
where a hatch was open. There must he find Scotty and 
warn him of the terrible danger Welchor’s infernal scheme 
presented. 

At the hatch he paused thunderstruck. The ground 
which, when he had climbed the rope ladder but a few 
moments before, had been but a score of feet below the 
belly of the dirigible had now fallen away to at least 
double that. 

A loud explosion made him start back, clutching the 
hatch lid in nervous dread. Followed a swiftly increas¬ 
ing series of lesser concussions that he realized at once 
was the starting of one of the ZR’s powerful twelve-cyl- 
indered Swik engines. 

A wild anxiety seized his mind. Had Captain Devon 
been able to push his preparations faster than the camp 

63 



ZR WINS! 


had been led to believe? Was the ZR-5 really going to 
get away to-day after all ? She had been withdrawn from 
her shelter. She had only in the past two minutes been 
permitted to rise from her moorings to a height that Bliss 
knew was usual for embarkation. 

His movements became jerky with apprehension. With 
a glance of dismay he saw that the ladder at this point 
had been lowered and housed on the roof of the control 
car just below. It would do no good to shout. Roar 
of all six engines forward now split the air with a deafen¬ 
ing noise. 

He turned and sped towards the aperture through 
which he had first entered the ZR’s interior. 

The rope ladder had disappeared. In a panic he knelt 
and peered out. Just below and aft of him was swung 
the radio shack. Through its tiny window he saw the 
operator bending over his key. The man wore helmet and 
a pack on his back. The pack, Bliss knew, contained a 
safety parachute. The helmet was an item of cruising 
equipment. The use of the key could mean only one 
thing: 

The ZR-5 was about to leave! 

Half stunned Bliss sank unsteadily to a sitting posture. 
His eyes sought the ground. It rested unmoving in his 
vision. If the dirigible had not yet left there was still 
time to call a halt. Still time for him to announce his 
presence and warn the commanding officer of the reason 
for his impetuous visit. 

He sprang to his feet. He lowered one leg over the 
hatch coaming. By clambering down on the roof of the 
radio car he would be in a position to signal to the men 
he now saw standing by the mooring bollards that ranged 
in a long ellipse under the airship’s body. 

Then like flame temptation seared his mind. 

Suppose he didn’t signal them! Suppose he hid! Sup- 

64 



SHANGHAIED! 


pose in the feverish excitement of departure his presence 
were overlooked! Suppose he seized his obvious oppor¬ 
tunity and became a stowaway on the greatest voyage of 
exploration the world had ever seen! 

His thoughts raced. Came to him in a torrent all his 
dreams of a great Polar Continent that should be added 
to the territorial empire of the United States. All his 
visions of a lost race inhabiting that continent. All his 
fierce ambitions to be among the first to discover and 
explore it. All the injustice of circumstance that had mili¬ 
tated against his joining the ZR-5 in her great adventure. 
Why shouldn’t he go? Had not Destiny conspired by 
this very series of incidents this morning to assure his 
presence aboard at the start? 

Then in the next breath and like the ebb of a storm- 
driven tide his sudden ecstasy fell away and joy drained 
from out his heart. Came to him a realization of the 
fabric of his life. Honor the keynote of his profession. 
Integrity the backbone of his trade. Religious adher¬ 
ence to the spirit as well as to the letter of the law the 
dominant characteristic of his position as a naval officer 
and a gentleman. What profit the thrill of great ad¬ 
venture when in one wholly unnecessary surrender to 
temptation he swept trustworthiness from his name? 

A quiver ran through the frame on which he stood. 
The men below were with energetic movements casting 
off their lines. The ground on which they danced like so 
many monkeys appeared to slide from side to side as the 
freed after-body of the dirigible swayed in the wind. 

To escape or even make his presence known that way 
was no longer possible. And while his hesitation had 
been but a matter of seconds those seconds might make 
the difference between safety and disaster not only for 
the crew that had so quickly manned their ship, but for 
the whole vast enterprise on which she was embarking. 

65 



ZR WINS! 


He leaped about and again ran madly for the fprward 
hatch. He must, no matter what the cost in temporary 
delay, warn the Skipper or the engineer of the peril that 
they faced. Even though it involved a certainty of being 
ejected from the ZR-5 there was no other solution to the 
dreadful problem. 

In the brief space of that last wild race there flashed 
across his mind the other complications that he faced. 
Welchor would stop at nothing to eliminate him from 
the neighborhood. If, as the scoundrel had declared, Joan 
were really coming up by the next boat she would arrive 
within the week. Who would be there to protect her ? 
Yet, on the other hand, if he stayed with the dirigible did 
not there lurk a chance that his seeming perfidy might be 
forgotten in the glory of her exploit and he be able in 
the end to claim his girl with the substance of achievement 
she deserved? 

To his horror he found the hatch had been closed and 
bolted. He flung himself upon it. With bleeding 
knuckles he tore wildly at the fastenings. To his joy he 
found he could move them. Sweat streaming from his 
face, he wormed them loose one after another. Damn 
Welchor! The acid patches once discovered could be 
quickly removed. There would not have been time for 
them to have eaten through the metal. 

Three bolts loose. One bolt left. It stuck. Sobbing 
he found his bruised fingers could do no more. In a 
frenzy he glanced about for some sort of tool. Nearby 
lay a small fragment of metal. He pounced upon it. He 
jammed it under the recalcitrant bolt. 

Roar of all engines deafened him. But there was no 
perceptible movement of the dirigible. She had not yet 
started. There was still time. He would leap upon the 
control car; wrench the helmsman away; demand cessa¬ 
tion of the start until his message was delivered. He 
66 



SHANGHAIED! 


wouldn’t win the prize for which he’d toiled and dreamed 
and planned. But he would keep unsullied the honor that 
he boasted. 

The last bolt was loose. But the hatch still stuck. 
Tears streaming down his cheeks he pounded the pitiful 
wreckage of his hands upon it. He sprang to his feet and 
kicked it first on one side and then on the other. He 
ground his teeth in a fury of baffled energy. 

Then his eye caught the item he had overlooked. On 
the side opposite the hinges and just under the small 
overhang was fixed an inconspicuous safety catch. In a 
flash he snapped it clear. The hatch sprung loose. With 
the cry of an animal he swung it up and looked out. He 
swayed giddily and nearly fell. He clutched with bleed¬ 
ing fingers and saved his life. 

Below him, half a thousand dizzy feet below, he beheld 
the white and tumbled surface of the polar pack. Swiftly 
it sped by him as he looked. 

The ZR-5 was off! 



CHAPTER VIII 
TOWARD THE POLE 


T HE forward control car of the ZR-5 swung on the 
center line of her underbody about a third of the 
distance between her nose and tail. It was nearly 
a hundred feet long and had about double the beam of 
an ordinary Pullman coach. It was divided into four 
cabins or compartments. First of these was the pilot 
house, which in its contents and equipment differed little 
from the pilot house of a steamship. The second division 
constituted two-thirds of the whole and provided a lux¬ 
uriously fitted wardroom or saloon for the officers of 
the dirigible. Next came the officers’ galley. And finally, 
the sleeping quarters, which were, in fact, nothing more 
than a dormitory with canvas-walled cubicles. 

Near the airship’s stern hung a second car of approxi¬ 
mately the same size as the control car, but divided 
athwartships by a single partition. The forward half 
was both living and sleeping space for the crew of forty 
men; the after half a combined workshop, storeroom and 
laboratory. 

On either side and outboard of the center line of the 
underbody were swung three small egg-shaped structures 
each containing one of the ZR-5’s powerful engine units. 
At the after end of each of these “engine-eggs,” as they 
had come to be known, spun a gigantic four-bladed pro¬ 
peller. In order that the tremendous wind currents from 
each propeller might not reduce the efficiency of that just 
68 


TOWARD THE POLE 


astern, the engine-eggs were staggered; that is to say, 
placed alternately out and in along the ZR’s bilge. 

The only other outside structures on the dirigible’s 
body were a small lookout station in her nose, the tiny 
radio house between the two main cabins, and a long 
narrow walk fore and aft upon her very summit. 

All communication between the various units was by 
means of the runway inside the ship’s body which Bliss 
had used. This was an essential feature in her construc¬ 
tion as it enabled the crew and officers to pass continuously 
going on and off watch, as well as in making the innu¬ 
merable inspections required for safety of the whole craft. 

Captain Devon stood in the pilot house puffing at a 
stumpy pipe and gazing intently out of the window 
towards the northern horizon. From time to time he 
studied the multitude of dials, gauges, and other patent 
indicating devices with which he was surrounded. Like 
the helmsman and McAlford he wore across his shoulders 
the small cruising pack which contained a safety para¬ 
chute. At sea one may jump into a life preserver at short 
notice and feel sure to beat the swiftest disaster that may 
overtake the water-borne vessel. In the air no human 
action is quick enough to prepare against the unwarned 
awfulness of gravity let loose upon the human body. So 
while the ZR-5 was of latest design and contained the 
greatest possible safety for her passengers not only in 
the noncombustibility of her helium but in the incredible 
strength of her structures, existing regulation required 
every man aboard her to wear at all times a folded para¬ 
chute strapped upon his back. Thus at the first flash of 
peril might the wearer leap clear of the doomed ship and 
float in safety to the earth beneath. In the present in¬ 
stance not only did the parachute bag contain umbrella 
and leading cords, but also reserve rations for three days 
and a complete first-aid kit. 

69 



ZR WINS! 


“A shade over ninety,” murmured the Skipper. 

Ninety miles an hour! Whizzing through the calm 
clear air. Sunshine smiling. The pack below growing 
leveler with every hour away from land. The Pole a 
scant thousand miles ahead. Not ten in the morning yet. 
Barometer steady. Every omen portending success. The 
Top of the Globe by midnight! North Cape in the morn¬ 
ing. How the wires would hum! The very air this time 
to-morrow must reek with radioed plaudits from the entire 
civilized world for America’s second planting of the 
Stars and Stripes at the Apex of the Sphere! 

“Twelve-hundred—twelve-fifty—a good altitude, Mc- 
Alford.” 

Scotty glanced through the window at the solid ice far 
down sweeping in silent swiftness under the racing air¬ 
ship. Twelve hundred feet up: a splendid altitude for 
speed! 

The Skipper joined him, and peered under hooded eyes 
to the north. He shook his head. A grimness firmed 
the clean-cut contours of his jaw. 

“A little luck, McAlford, and they’ve got us.” 

Scotty scanned the blue distance for some sign of the 
speck that would indicate they might be overtaking the 
Belgian plane which had hopped off almost at the very 
instant the ZR-5 had. 

“Hardly a chance, sir. Unless she smears herself up 
the way the Frenchman did.” 

“Or has what all these racers suffer sooner or later, a 
radiator leak.” 

“You mean you think she’d stop on the ice for water?” 

Captain Devon glanced across the row of flickering 
gauges. Picking a telephone from its hangar he punched 
a call bell. 

“Of course they would. . . . Hello, engine six? Cap¬ 
tain speaking. Your revolutions are down. ... Yes. 
70 



TOWARD THE POLE 


. . . Well, remember it’s a strain on the vertical rudder.” 
He slammed the receiver back. “Guess I’m a little jumpy 
after the past week, McAlford.” 

Scotty shot an admiring glance at the indomitable little 
man. 

“I should think you would be, sir! I’ve had a few bad 
dreams myself.” He crossed over and lowered his tone. 
“Did you ever have a talk with Eppley, sir?” 

A shade of annoyance crossed the Skipper’s tired face. 
He bit viciously on the pipestem between his teeth. 
“I—” 

A bell jangled loudly. Flipping the cover of a magna- 
vox telephone with an angry gesture he paused to ac¬ 
knowledge the call. 

“Plane approaching from the south, sir! After look¬ 
out speaking.” 

“Must be the Limey!” burst Scotty. 

Indicating a slight change of course to the helmsman, 
“Or Welchor, bless his old heart!” countered Captain 
Devon. 

As the ZR-5 swung over a point a black speck above the 
low brown line marking the fast-disappearing coast of 
North America confirmed the lookout’s report. 

Unable longer to contain himself, “Ten dollars it’s 
Welchor!” cried the Skipper with unbecoming asperity. 

“Done, sir!” 

The speck grew. . . . Widened. . . . Became a bird. 
... A large angular bird with wings, one above the 
other. . . . Became a biplane. . . . Glint of sunshine re¬ 
flected from its whirling propellers. . . . 

“She’s coming fast. Must be making a hundred and 
fifty if she’s making an inch, sir!” 

The Skipper swung his glasses upon the onrushing 
plane. His tongue clicked. Twice he made as if to 
speak. But, being a man of habitual caution he forbore 
7i 



ZR WINS! 


to proclaim an opinion without positive assurance of its 
truth. 

“I knew it!” he cried suddenly. “I told you it was 
Thorne! Good old scout!” 

“Wait!” protested McAlford. “It looks to me—” 

“Hanged if it don’t!” broke in the Skipper disappoint¬ 
edly. “It is the Limey! Doggone it! Thorne told me 
he’d be away at ten. Well, let’s give the Britisher a 
wave.” He flung down the side sash. A violent gust 
of wind struck him with such force that he staggered 
back into Scotty’s arms. No longer soundproof now that 
the window was open, the control car became a caldron of 
sound as the roar of the ZR’s engines poured in. 

The British plane drew alongside. Her lines and type 
were the same as Welchor’s. But on her lean racing body 
she carried in bright colors the imperial emblem of her 
nationality. 

Her pilot half rose in his seat. A grin of friendly 
exultation underlined his bulging goggles. Behind him 
his relief emerged suddenly from the engine cockpit. 
Both waved their arms wildly. 

“Good boys!” involuntarily bellowed Devon, without 
the slightest hope of making himself heard above the 
immeasurable wall of thunder between him and his rival. 
The Englishman also opened his mouth and bawled words 
that were lost except for the happiness their parent seemed 
to feel upon their utterance. . . . 

Sportsmanship no words can well describe! The clean 
zest of contest unsullied by human folly, lust, or hate! 
A glorious race! A game for supermen! The whole 
world breathlessly awaiting the result. . . . 

The British entry drew away. Then suddenly was 
visible what neither watcher from the ZR-5 had seen 
before. From just under the plane’s fuselage, about on 
line with the engine’s crank case, a black thread seemed 
72 



TOWARD THE POLE 


to dangle. Ten feet below, this thread disintegrated into 
glistening ebony drops of lubricating oil that fell in a 
wind-spattered stream to invisibility in the abyss be- 
neath. 

With a jerk Scotty closed the window upon the awful 
tumult without. 

“Did you see it?” he burst. 

The look on the Skipper’s face was sufficient answer. 
He nodded. 

After a moment, “McAlford,” he said, “that fellow 
has a crank-case leak sure as sunrise. He’s a goner. He 
may last a hundred miles. Maybe two hundred. But 
he’s doomed to land helpless out here in the Polar Sea 
before midnight. He’ll freeze or starve or drown. Not 
a chance in a million we’ll pick him up. Of course we’ll 
stop if we see him. But—” 

Jangled again the lookout bell. This time the forward 
one. 

. . on the ice ahead, sir,” Scotty half-caught the 
message. 

“Down, half rudder,” ordered the commander in a 
strained voice. 

As the airship dipped there came visible north and 
east from her position what seemed to be a black smear 
on the ice. The ZR was headed for it. Engines were 
slowed as she elbowed her way down through the lifting 
air. 

“What did I tell you?” said the Skipper. 

But both men soon saw that it was not the Britisher 
in trouble, as had been their first thought, but the Bel¬ 
gian. The peculiar cut of the airplane’s wings and the 
brilliant blue enamel of her body made recognition easy. 

As the ZR-5 settled towards the ice pack her commander 
gave a sharp order to slow all engines. Gauges flickered 
and the roar outside perceptibly diminished. With pro- 
73 



ZR WINS! 


pellers just turning over to keep her skillfully hovering 
twenty feet above the Belgians Captain Devon shouted 
his offer of assistance. 

“Radiator leak,” the discouraged pilot yelled back. 
“Stopping here for water. Maybe we can fix her. You 
are a fine gentleman, Capitaine Dee—von, so to stop. But 
you must not waste precious time.” 

“He’s a sport, all right!” exclaimed Scotty. 

“Very well, old man,” returned the Skipper. “I like 
your nerve. Wish you luck. Au revoir” 

“Au *voir, mon capitaine!” chorused the Belgians and 
bravely waved and smiled as the shadowing monster 
over them lifted slowly and gathered speed again. 

McAlford, a little thoughtful, closed the window upon 
the tumult without. Neither man spoke. Arrows on 
the speed dials moved slowly back again close to the 
hundred-mile mark. A monosyllable now and then from 
the helmsman as the gyro compass swung imperceptibly 
from the lubber’s line. 

Minutes passed. Relaxation seemed impossible. 

Suddenly Captain Devon turned upon his chief 
engineer. 

“McAlford, you mentioned Eppley.” 

Scotty looked up quickly. Was it possible that the 
Skipper had come to the same conclusion as himself? 

“Yes, sir. I mentioned him because I wanted you to 
know that he feared conspiracy against the ZR-5.” 

With an angry gesture Devon removed his pipe and 
used it to punctuate his words. 

“McAlford, if you mention that foolishness again I 
don’t know what I’ll do to you. I was thinking of Eo- 
pley’s theory about there being land out here.” 

McAlford ignored the threat. “But there is no sense 
in our being blind to circumstantial evidence, sir,” he 
persisted with asperity. 


74 




TOWARD THE POLE 


“What do you mean?” 

“That we should be blind fools not to realize that up 
to the present moment every entry save ourselves and 
Welchor has failed or is about to fail. The Frenchman’s 
crash—” 

“Too much haste,” snapped the Skipper. 

“The Norwegian’s fuel explosion—” 

“It was common gossip that his proof was too high.” 

“The Britisher’s oil leak and—” 

“Absurd!” 

“. . . and the Belgian’s radiator gone to pot,” Scotty 
went on unmoved. “Don’t you see how, when they’re 
all joined up together, it looks like underhand work?” 

Captain Devon threw up his hands in token of utter 
refusal to accede to such views. 

“It doesn’t make sense, McAlford. . . . Steady, 
there !” The helmsman reconcentrated his attention on his 
compass. “When the time came for us to make the trans¬ 
atlantic flight from Newfoundland in 1919 we were ac¬ 
corded every possible courtesy. It is now entirely proper 
that the United States should do the same to other coun¬ 
tries that wish to make the transpolar flight.” 

The engine dial on number three suddenly swung to 
zero. McAlford catching the movement with a watchful 
eye sprang to the tube. The dirigible, for the moment 
under an unbalanced impulse, swung off her course. The 
helmsman met her with sharp rudder. 

“Don’t care!” bawled the chief to his henchman far 
aft. “Slam it into her! That’s the third time in an hour 
you’ve slowed!” 

The dial swung back. 

“That’s the baby!” encouraged Scotty, his voice losing 
its tenseness. 

Captain Devon stepped over and laid his hand on his 
engineer’s shoulder. 


75 



ZR WINS! 


“Doesn’t it penetrate,” he said almost pleadingly, “what 
I’ve been up against all these weeks ? Scarcely a waking 
moment that I haven’t had to coax or drive or damn 
some man or mechanism. Washington couldn’t give me 
money enough. Men were scarce. The criticism of the 
Navy by the whole American public would have been 
my fault if we had failed.” 

“But why will you shut your eyes to what is, sir?” 

“Simply because Eppley’s theories were so wild that 
they set me against all he said or did. When he hinted 
to you that there was a plot afoot to damage these planes, 
and the ZR-5 as well, he was simply voicing his sub¬ 
conscious desire to have things fall his way and make 
it possible for him to join us under; some pretext or 
other. Thank heavens we are rid of him! I think if I 
had had to stay around the camp another day and even see 
him I should have been sorely tempted to do him bodily 
harm.” 

“But suppose,” persisted the mulish Scotchman, “that 
later on it turned out that there was really something 
in what he claimed?” 

“Stop it!” cried the other. “If you want to think fool 
thoughts and believe fool things and altogether act a 
fool yourself go right ahead and do it! Only don’t foist 
your insanity on me. I repeat that I think Eppley is 
crazy and nothing would please me better than never to 
set eyes on him again! Understand me, McAlford?” 

The commander fixed his chief engineer with a baleful 
glare. But for reply to his outburst he received only a 
wild expression of utter incredulity. McAlford’s eyes 
literally bulged from their sockets. 

In perplexity Captain Devon swung about to find him¬ 
self face to face with the unkempt but flesh-and-blood 
object of his anathema: Lieutenant Bliss Eppley, United 
States Navy. 


76 



CHAPTER IX 
A CLOSE SHAVE 


I N DESCRIBING the incident to his messmates when 
he came off watch the helmsman dwelt particularly on 
the evidences of incipient explosion that marked the 
bearing of his commanding officer at Eppley’s dramatic 
appearance. 

“I^irst, the old man turned pink! Then he turned 
white. Then sorta green. Gosh! I thought he was 
going to fall down and throw a fit then and there! And 
the chief wasn’t much better. Made funny sounds in his 
throat. I figured for a minute that he’d swallowed his 
cigar. And that Eppley, the lieutenant you know, never 
turned a hair! Just stood there and looked kind of mad 
as if he was expecting to get slugged and was going to 
give back good as he got the minute any one started on 
anything.” 

Which really wasn’t quite accurate as far as Bliss was 
concerned. For his state of mind was far too agitated 
to think of combat. 

“What does this mean?” finally choked the Skipper. 

“I had no intention of going with you, sir,” explained 
Bliss lamely. “I came aboard only in order to see 
McAlford and to tell him about his tanks.” 

“What’s the matter with my tanks?” exclaimed Scotty. 
Captain Devon, not taking his eyes off the stowaway, 
snapped: 

“Nothing’s the matter with them, McAlford. Just 
some more of this lunatic’s hallucinations!” 

“Not at all, sir!” cried Bliss. “I am positive that if 

77 


ZR WINS! 


you inspected them now you would find out they have been 
tampered with. Maybe Welchor—” 

The Skipper held up his hand for silence. “None of 
that! - I will not listen to the absurd stuff you have been 
ramming down your friend’s neck here. It’s too late 
to put you off. We have gone too far. I shall settle your 
case when we get to land. In the meantime consider 
yourself under arrest. Confine your movements to the 
wardroom. Understand that your conversation with 
others is not to be on any subject that pertains to your 
absurd claims and suspicions. You are to visit neither 
the engines nor the pilot house while you are here.” 

“But, Captain,” protested McAlford, “don’t you think 
you ought to listen to his reasons for coming aboard?” 

“I certainly do not. The reasons he is here are very 
evident to me. Eppley is and has been exceedingly anxious 
to make this trip. I cannot blame him for that. But 
when his desires carry him to the point of such unofficer¬ 
like behavior as making himself a common stowaway I 
cannot treat him as an officer, and I do not wish to give 
him the opportunity to do any damage to the morale of my 
men while he is with us.” 

A look of desperation crept into Bliss’s worn face. 
“You refuse even to investigate my suspicions, sir?” 

“Absolutely. There is nothing on which you could 
found them. And I will not believe for a moment—” 

The sentence was never finished. At that instant the 
dirigible swerved suddenly and without warning from her 
horizontal course and swung dizzily downward at an 
angle of forty-five degrees toward the ice field below. 
Since falling in with the Belgian she had been cruising 
at but a few hundreds of feet above the floes. This with 
the momentum of her tremendous speed made a crash 
inevitable. 

McAlford sprang to the telegraphs. “Stop all en- 

78 



A CLOSE SHAVE 


gines!” he bellowed, not waiting for acknowledgment at 
the other end. 

Captain Devon shot open the general alarm. The 
helmsman yanked feverishly but without profit at his 
levers. Bliss braced himself in dread anticipation of 
what seemed unavoidable destruction of the dirigible. 

The roar of the engines ceased almost at once. But 
the ZR-5 continued her suicidal swoop towards the ice. 
It seemed as if nothing could save her. 

Impulse gripped Bliss to scream, “I told you so!” 
Could this be aught but Welchor’s work? In the next 
half second of sickening horror there flashed across his 
mind the damning realization that the rudder of all places 
was the ZR~5’s most vulnerable spot. A trick of utter 
simplicity would cause the mechanism to jam at a critical 
moment and drive the great dirigible to her death among 
the marble bergs. 

Less than a hundred feet from the soaring pack Cap¬ 
tain Devon gave an abrupt exhibition of his steely-nerved 
resourcefulness that the Navy Department long ago had 
recognized as one of the chief characteristics of this offi¬ 
cer. Not wasting time to give an order he sprang like a 
tiger to the helm and sent the man there spinning. Seiz¬ 
ing the vertical rudder control with both hands, and with 
an effort that turned his sweating countenance purple, he 
wrenched the contrivance hard over. 

Instantly the ZR answered. So suddenly, indeed, that 
all were thrown heavily to port as she lunged sidewise. 
Whence, as Bliss afterwards realized, centrifugal force 
was given a chance to seize the huge body and roll it over 
in the same way a vessel at high speed heels when its 
rudder is put sharply right or left. 

With a sickening rending crash the dirigible struck the 
ice. One engine-egg was torn clean from its moorings 
and rolled with a dreadful clattering among the nubbles. 
79 



ZR WINS! 


A corner of the control car struck the sharp pinnacle of 
a floe edge and ripped the inner girder clean out for a 
length of twenty feet. 

But Captain Devon’s presence of mind had saved his 
ship. For the heel she took at the instance of her sudden 
hard-down helm had enabled her to roll nearly halfway 
over. So that, despite her headlong dive to the ice, she 
struck not upon the solid understructures but on her more 
elastic side. Except for the wrecked engine-egg and minor 
damages to the control car and starboard sheath she was 
quite unharmed. She bounced twice after the first con¬ 
cussion, which completed the demoralization of her ter¬ 
rified crew. But she was far from being the wreck every 
man aboard her had pictured during the awful moments 
of her fall. 

With trembling hands Scotty began to fumble in his 
pockets for a cigar. Two he pulled out were tattered 
beyond recognition. The third still retained an inch of 
substance. Lighting up he turned to Bliss and said: 

“Well, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, if we don’t find you 
vindicated now I give up!” 

“Pooh and fiddlesticks!’ snorted the Skipper. “I can 
guess the cause of this accident without even looking at 
the rudder!” 

Finding the port door jammed shut by the collision 
he led the way to the control car’s roof from which all 
three clambered to the glistening surface of the ice. 

The boatswain met them. “Jammed rudder, sir! Hori¬ 
zontal rudder. Threw us right into the—” 

“You don’t say so!” interrupted the Captain sarcasti¬ 
cally. “Did you think we imagined she did it of her own 
free will?” 

“No, sir. But—” 

“Why she jammed—not the jamming, boatswain, is 
what we want to know.” 


80 



A CLOSE SHAVE 


The fellow turned beet red. “Oh,” he murmured 
shamefacedly, “if that’s what you want to know, sir, I 
think you’ll find we snarled a bit o’ mooring hawser in 
her after strut” 

“Hum. Harumph! ... So that’s it. You didn’t tell 
me in the first place because you thought you’d lead me 
astray with that other line!” He turned to Bliss. “Are 
you satisfied?” 

“Not unless I see it, sir,” was the obdurate reply. 

The Skipper shrugged. “Oh, very well. Call every¬ 
body a liar, why don’t you?” 

“Never thought of such a thing, sir!” came the angry 
retort. 

Me Alford elbowed his way between the two. “Look 
here, sir, I believe we ought to take time to make a 
thorough inspection right here and now. No telling what 
damage we may have done by this smash-up. And I still 
believe some attention ought to be paid to Eppley’s sus¬ 
picions.” 

Captain Devon threw up his arms in total surrender. 
“Go on, then, you pair of calamity-howlers! If you’ll 
feel any better for it, McAlford, go and give her the 
once-over. But be snappy about it. I intend to start in 
fifteen minutes unless the after body is more sprung than 
I think now.” 

Scotty turned on his heel. But before he had taken two 
steps towards the nearest engine-egg a grimy figure swung 
from the main middle hatch leading to the ZR’s inner 
body and came running at top speed. Just before he 
reached the chief engineer he seemed to recognize his 
boss and tried to stop. The net result of his effort was 
promptly to lose footing on the slippery surface and 
hurtle with almost undiminished velocity towards Mc- 
A 1 ford’s underpinning. The next second the latter was 
seated comfortably atop his assailant and puffing con- 
81 



ZR WINS l 


templatively at his ragged cigar. Undaunted, the victim 
beneath him made no attempt to rise but cried: 

“It’s absolutely empty, sir! Absolutely. Took a 
sounding. And—I tell you, sir, it—” 

Placing his heel on the excited speaker’s chest Me Al¬ 
ford commanded him to be calm. “Slowly, Ives, one at 
a time, old scout. What’s empty?” 

“After tank, sir. Got a hole in it, sir! Little round 
hole! I looked ’em all over just before we left. Not a 
chance it was there then.” 

Bliss cocked an ear. A little hole? Wasn’t there when 
she started ? A little hole! In a leap he was at his friend’s 
elbow. 

“That’s exactly what I came to tell you!” he cried. 
“It’s the old wartime acid trick! Quick! Maybe there 
are others.” Not waiting for the bewildered McAlford 
to reply he set off at a run for the fuel tanks which were 
clustered aft between and above eggs 4 and 5. 

Three minutes later the truth stood revealed: Before 
the very eyes of the doubting Captain, Bliss removed three 
small pats of putty from the ZR’s tanks of precious fuel. 
Acid from two had eaten so far into the metal that gaso¬ 
line oozed out when they were taken off. The third one 
was luckily more spread; but even it had engraved an 
irregular pitted spot of corrosion on the smooth sheet 
metal. 

Bliss wiped his hands. “Half an hour more, sir, and 
she’d have been spraying the whole ice pack with gas!” 

Captain Devon did not deign to reply. His brow fur¬ 
rowed by a thoughtful frown; he studied the damage 
closely. He ordered that all men who could be spared 
from the temporary repairs being made upon the control 
car be sent at once over the dirigible to scrutinize her 
carefully not only for possible damage but in order to 
82 



A CLOSE SHAVE 


ascertain if any more “infernal machines,” as he put it, 
could be found. 

It was characteristic of the little man that once con¬ 
vinced he let no personal vanity stand in the way of jus¬ 
tice. Quickly he called the crew around him. 

“I want you beggars to look at this!” He held up one 
of the putty containers of corrosive acid. “Some damn 
skunk has tried to put us out of commission! He came 
all-fired close to it, too. You’re a hot lot of keepers, you 
are! Now, over the top with you! You have fifteen 
minutes to cover her. If you find a single thing that 
looks suspicious pass the word down here to me so I 
can come and have a look. Every second we lose may 
mean the race. Now jump!” 

Turning to Bliss he held out his hand. “It’s a hard 
life, Eppley, if you don’t weaken. Guess you’ve the right 
stuff in you, all right, not to have weakened after all you 
have been up against. I’m just about ready to eat my 
words after what we’ve found here. However, I still 
don’t admit my friend Welchor had anything to do with 
this rottenness. But some one did it. And you certainly 
did your durnedest to put us wise!” 

“He did, sir!” put in McAlford enthusiastically. “Wor¬ 
ried the life out of me with his threats. Yet even I 
thought they weren’t much more than bilge water.” 

The Skipper crammed his pipe bowl full and grinned. 
“Here, cookie,” he called to a Filipino peering anxiously 
through the after galley port, “let’s have about a gallon of 
nice black Java in the control car. Speed her up, too!” 
Backing off in order to see the upper runway he loosed 
a stentorian roar upon the crawling inspection gang that 
swarmed over the huge body. “All hands take stations!” 

The boatswain trotted up half breathless from the 
acrobatics of his long climb to the ZR’s summit where he 

83 



ZR WINS! 


had been directing the outside party. “All clear, sir. 
Sound as a rock top-side and aft.” 

Scotty glanced ruefully at the ruined engine-egg which 
with the debris of its metal innards was scattered blackly 
across the clean ice. 

“She’ll crab it, sir,” he groaned. 

“Crab it nothing!” snapped the Skipper. “Ease up on 
your port engines and you’ll equalize the strain. Don’t 
you remember the time the old ZR-3 nearly decapitated 
the Woolworth Tower?” 

He turned to Bliss. A sly grin wrinkled the corners 
of his eyes. 

“By the way, Eppley, since Fate has sort of given you 
the bulge on the old man I’m going to get even by making 
you my assistant. You’ll do the navigating from now 
on. And it’ll be your job to look out for that land you 
say we ought to find up here.” 

“But it’s not along this course, sir! We ought to make 
a detour further south in order to pick it up,” protested 
Bliss. 

Swinging up over the roof rail the Skipper paused. 
“You know I really wish we did have time to have a 
look down there,” he said a little wistfully. “Think of 
finding new land! But we haven’t the time. We—” 
Abruptly he broke off and gave vent to a whistle of 
surprise. “For Billy’s sake look at that!” 

Following the line of his pointing finger the two behind 
him glanced northward. At once they, too, gave vent to 
gasps of astonishment. Not five hundred yards away 
and directly between the dirigible and her goal had risen 
what seemed to be a wall of white vapor. This wall ex¬ 
tended to right and left as far as the eye could see. 

It was at least fifty feet high. It was advancing. And 
while it appeared solid without, as it came closer there 
;were visible through its shadowy van a myriad writhing 

84 



A CLOSE SHAVE 


figures that swayed and danced with violent swirling 
movements. The brilliant sun still shone. The air was 
still. No warning sound was audible. Yet there ahead 
with sinister noiseless tread came the terror of the polar 
pack: the sudden summer blizzard. 

“Stand by to cast off!” thundered the Captain. 

Scotty dashed madly to the after car. “Man all engines! 
Start ’em up!” 

But even before the welcome tumult of the powerful 
propellers had swelled to cruising pitch a deeper roar 
drowned all puny man-made noise. With the shriek of a 
maddened Titan the tempest was upon them. The giant 
dirigible struggling upward through the flying drift 
quailed before the blow. Like a blinded thing she hung. 
With all engines going full speed ahead she slipped back 
inch by inch, helpless in a grip of crushing power. 



CHAPTER X 


HELPLESS! 

I T WILL be grievous news for many people to learn 
that within fifteen minutes of the storm’s first impact 
five seasoned sailors on the ZR-5 were down and out 
with seasickness. Air travel in moderate winds will al¬ 
ways be comfortable as compared with an ocean voyage. 
The incessant ground-swell movement of the sea-borne 
vessel will be absent. But once let the dirigible come to 
grips with a real old-fashioned humdinger of a gale—and 
they’re pretty regular affairs some months of the year— 
and new names will have to be invented for what we now 
shudderingly term “pitching and rolling.” 

“Where’s that gosh-dinged mess attendant?” snapped 
the Skipper querulously between the spurts of fiery 
language that he poured through the communication lines 
to sweating green-faced men in every part of his ship. 

It so happened that at that moment the “gosh-dinged” 
individual in question was still in the galley and had just 
completed pouring the ordered coffee into a large porce¬ 
lain pot. Considerably less than half of the beverage 
reached its destination. The remainder slushed wetly back 
and forth across the deck which now was swaying in¬ 
cessantly with wild swoops and jerks. Staggering down 
the narrow passageway the boy finally reached the pilot 
house door on the forward side of the mess room. Just 
as he put his trembling hand on the knob some sixth sense 
prompted him to glance over his shoulder. What he saw 
caused him to emit a piercing scream. For in that instant 
the ZR-5 had made a frightful lunge downward at an 

86 


HELPLESS! 


angle no ship of the sea ever dreamed of attaining. Un¬ 
able to stand such strain the mess table had broken from 
its moorings and came careening towards the helpless boy. 
Twice his shrill cries cut through the thin panel between 
him and his commanding officer before the final crash 
came. 

‘‘What the hell—?” was framed on the Skipper’s lips. 
The next second an avalanche of coffee, table legs, Fili¬ 
pino legs (and arms), splintered wood and metal frag¬ 
ments burst from the separating bulkhead and swept him 
helplessly to the deck. 

At any other time such a cataclysm would have been a 
matter of considerable official red tape. Damage to gov¬ 
ernment property to say nothing of assault and battery of 
one’s commanding officer, even though accidental, are 
grave misdemeanors in a military service. But now the 
giant ZR-5 was fighting for her life. Buffeted by a gale 
of incredible strength, her human warders blinded by the 
swirling snow without, she dove and rolled and skyrock¬ 
eted as if from reckless fear she had suddenly gone stark 
mad. 

Communication with the engine-eggs suddenly ceased. 
As they were invisible through the drift it was impossible 
to tell if the propellers were turning over or not; indeed, 
if the structures themselves were still attached to the 
ship. Near at hand and from just outside the control 
car came a violent cracking noise that was audible even 
above the fearful turmoil of the storm. 

Captain Devon with scarce a glance at the horrified 
mess attendant scrambled to his feet and sprang up the 
ladder. Raising the overhead hatch a crack he peered 
through. Spray of fine snow sifted down, half-blinding 
him. 

“Wow 1 ” he gasped. “She must have a rip in her for- 

87 



ZR WINS! 


ward. I can’t see anything. But that noise means a torn 
section in the sheath.” 

All turned serious faces upon him. Once the outer 
covering started going there could be no hope for the 
ZR-5. Searching fingers of the gale would quickly reach 
the fragile gas-containers and burst them like so many 
toy balloons. 

‘‘Let me go up,” volunteered Bliss and Scotty almost 
in the same breath. 

The Skipper shook his head. “It would be suicide, 
boys. No, we’ve got to make a lower level. If the ship 
goes we must at least save the men. Once those gas bags 
start and we’ll be dropping in sixty seconds !” 

Though dancing crazily the ZR-5 still answered her 
horizontal rudder and nosed slowly down through the 
maelstrom of flying snow and wind. Occasional rifts in 
the drift made visible the ice floes beneath. But their 
sharp and jagged pinnacles no longer stood out, for 
the smoothing brush of the tempest had painted out all 
lines as a mountain fog blurs peak and crag. 

The dirigible lay nearly broadside to the wind now. 
What little control was left her meant only that for the 
time being she could be worked to a lower level if desired. 

Suddenly through the dense scud to leeward loomed 
a towering barrier of ice. A startled cry escaped the 
helmsman clinging weakly to his control lever. Bliss 
emitted an “Oh!” of astonishment. Captain Devon grip¬ 
ping the port coaming did not see this new peril at first. 
But at Scotty’s wild “God help us now!” he sprang 
across the little pilot house and peered out. 

Now it is all very well to say a “pressure ridge” is 
simply an elevated wall of ice fragments caused by wind 
or tide driving floes together so that they collide»and then 
disintegrate along their edges. And it is quite as colorless 
88 




HELPLESS! 


to say these ridges are high as a house and higher. But 
no power of written word can ever wholly describe the 
frightful picture in its awful hair-raising reality. Imagine 
miles on miles of pack ice ten to fifty feet in thickness 
driven by a hurricane which buffets countless millions of 
tiny pinnacles each acting as a sail and totaling an im¬ 
measurable area. The whole incredible pressure then 
concentrated upon a single floe edge grinding against its 
neighbor. Noise like a thousand straining hawsers pop¬ 
ping and crackling; like the booming of a torrent’s ice 
jam freed in May; like the splitting of a mountainside 
by earthquake; like the crumpling shattering grind of a 
score of ocean liners ramming headlong; like the stamp¬ 
ing, pounding riot of innumerable locoed cattle. . . . Pen 
can never limn the awfulness of the polar pack gone 
mad. No linear dimensions can measure the Titan fea¬ 
tures of the pressure ridges which from it erupt. 

These ridges had, of course, been visible from the 
ZR-5 as she passed over them earlier in the day. But 
from the altitude at which she was flying their vertical 
lines were flattened, their length foreshortened. So that 
now, close by, to the stunned observers in the airship’s 
pilot house it seemed that, as if to seal their final doom, 
the Demons of the Pack had flung a barrier of marble 
boulders in their path against which the helpless dirigible 
must dash herself to pieces in the twinkling of an eye. 

But perturbation held no part in the doughty Skipper’s 
repertoire. While his three companions were in the throes 
of their new and very justifiable agitation his nimble mind 
was meeting the emergency half-way and preparing once 
more to baffle Fate. 

Without wasting time to commit himself to orders he 
sprang to the rungs leading to the control car’s roof and 
the next instant disappeared into a whirling cloud of 
powdery snow. 


89 



ZR WINS! 


“What can he do?” groaned Scotty. 

But something told Bliss the Skipper’s genius would 
toe the mark again. 

By this time both he and McAlford were scrambling 
up the ladder after their commanding officer with a feel¬ 
ing of blind loyalty to their senior rather than because 
any clear line of action had presented itself. Then over 
his shoulder Bliss saw flash by the starboard window the 
light patent anchor which was stored atop the car. Shred¬ 
ding after it whirled its manila line which, he knew, led 
to a metal ringbolt set in the longitudinal girder overhead. 

“The crazy fool!” 

“What?” said Scotty, spitting snow and tobacco without 
regard for aim. 

“He’s thrown the emergency anchor over the side!” 
wailed Bliss. “It wouldn’t hold a straw hat in this cy¬ 
clone !” 

Which was quite true. But then Captain Devon never 
for an instant thought it would. Actually what he had 
in his ingenious mind was not clear until some thirty 
seconds later when the anchor’s steel fluke caught, swung 
the drifting dirigible’s blunt nose sharply downward 
toward the ice, and held her taut for one dizzy lingering 
second against the howling blizzard. In the next gust 
the light line snapped. Whereat, with a bounce like a 
rubber ball, the huge ship sprang back and upwards from 
her momentary checkrein. With the natural buoyancy 
that was hers she leaped lightly as a hurdling cavalry 
charger over the barrier ridge of ice and slid gently 
into the narrow zone of quiet just beyond. 

A shout of applause greeted the Skipper as he swung 
like a snow-stippled Santa Claus back into the pilot house. 

Stamping his cold feet upon the deck he flashed a grin 
of appreciation. Then, “Out with you!” he cried. “Not 
a second to lose! We’ve got to moor her here in this 
90 



HELPLESS! 


lee. It’s our only chance! Eppley, you have a skin 
parka on. Beat it out there to the ridge and take our 
nose line! McAlford, roust out the gang aft! Give ’em 
hell!” 

Captain Devon’s demand for instant action was well 
based on the facts of the case. The ZR-5 had made a 
miraculous leap over the granite wall of icy debris. She 
had skinned down the opposite side by a matter of inches. 
She now hung momentarily in a sort of backwash of eddy 
currents caused by the defensive effect of the lofty wind¬ 
break that lay between her and the full force of the gale. 
But her slight positive buoyancy coupled with the fact 
that the serrated summit of the pressure ridge permitted 
an occasional gust to strike her upper body made it but 
a question of minutes before she would be once more 
at the mercy of the elements. 

As Bliss dropped over the side and fell sprawling upon 
the crystal surface of the floe beneath he involuntarily 
glanced upward. To his horror he saw for the first time 
the great gaping hole in the body sheathing. The tear 
ran from the airship’s nose clear to the turn of her for¬ 
ward shoulder. A broad flap hung down, offering an in¬ 
viting target for the next blast that came along. As¬ 
suredly there was little now between the noble craft and 
utter annihilation at the hands of Nature’s invisible ar¬ 
tillery. 

Stumbling and slipping, he ran at best speed possible 
towards the precipitous mass of tumbled ice fragments 
ahead. One look over his shoulder brought a shuddering 
realization of the proximity of doom. Not fifty yards 
to leeward from the foot of the ridge the quiet zone cut 
off. There in sharp demarcation the hell of drift and 
wind was renewed with fury unimpaired. Above him 
across the toothed pinnacles of the ridge the blizzard 
roared as through a tunnel. 

9i 



ZR WINS! 


“There on the ice, stand by!” 

Faintly came the cry, though the man he saw braced 
with a heaving line on the control car’s nose was within 
an easy stone’s throw. 

He seized the monkey’s paw and hove with all his 
strength. A sailor muffled in hooded wind-proof and 
staggering drunkenly like himself joined him and helped 
haul the heavier hawser out. Together they slipped its 
bowline over a sharp projection. 

Aft struggled another group. Amidships four lines 
were got out. Driven by the Skipper’s infectious energy 
all hands worked with a frenzy that soon resulted in the 
ZR-5 being moored securely in less time than it usually 
took to lead out a single cable. She lay parallel to the axis 
of the ridge, and except for a slight swaying motion rested 
quietly in ber providential refuge. 

As quickly as the men were freed they were sent to 
repair the ugly body damage higher up. A cordon of 
them clambered up inside the cavernous interior and by 
working along the dizzy heights of the polygonal frame 
ranged themselves around the gaping hole in the sheath. 
All were armed with hooked poles which enabled them 
to hoist and respread the heavy fabric. 

Mariners of the last generation laid aloft and spread 
to the swinging yardarm. With numbing fingers and 
aching bellies they hugged the wooden spar and Wrestled 
the flapping canvas into its waiting bunt. It was a short 
sharp fight. A good fight, though, for it had its limita¬ 
tions and the seafarers always won. 

But those grim days are done. Our mammoth modern 
greyhound of the air is replacing the lumbering cruiser 
of the sea. She has no sail, nor bunt, nor swaying creak¬ 
ing yardarm. Yet the sailor has not changed. 

Perilously high, clinging to metal edges bitterly cold, 
and crawling along by inches the heroic crew of the 
92 



HELPLESS! 


ZR-5 drove unquestioning to their task. Perched at a 
mid-point nearly equally perilous was David Devon, the 
relentless. 

“Space yourselves!” he bellowed, his voice echoing un¬ 
cannily among the duralumin rafters. For a moment the 
roar of the gale outside rose above the power of his 
steely lungs. Then, “What do you think this is? A tea 
party?” he shrieked as four clinging pigmies hesitated at 
one narrow angle nearly a hundred feet above the level 
of the ZR’s floor. A smoke of snow enveloped them 
as the wind drove cruelly through the rent. 

With pathetic slowness the little band circled the hole. 
Those at the further end leaned first and hooked at the 
flapping sheathing hung below. Slowly they passed their 
burden on. Slowly the fabric spread. Twice it was car¬ 
ried away. Once a man numbed by cold slipped and 
would have fallen to his death had not his neighbor caught 
him as if by a miracle and held his limp body until another 
could arrive and help lower him to safety. 

Slowly, heartbreakingly, the fight went on: ever the 
sailor’s fight against wind and cold and the hard unfeeling 
elements of his vessel’s structure. Not a swinging yard¬ 
arm, nor a flapping canvas to be wrestled merrily into 
its swelling bunt. But a bitterer, more torturing phase 
of that age-old war the men of the sea and the air shall 
forever wage to gain their ends. 

And so the hole was closed. The baffled wind still 
howled its threats without. But within the looming tun¬ 
nel of the ZR’s monstrous body all was calm. Once 
again Jack Tar had won. 

David Devon met his staggering company as they 
swung exhausted from the braces. 

“Good boys!” he told them. And there was that in 
his tone which somehow repaid them for the agony they 
93 



ZR WINS! 


had suffered. “A mug up for all hands! Pronto!” he 
told the boatswain. “Make it snappy!” 

At the forward hatch he met what looked like a pair 
of Eskimo hunters. They accosted him in voices hoarse 
from shouting at one another in the gale. 

“We took a look around her, Captain,” said McAlford; 
for the more ponderous Eskimo was he. “And I’m 
afraid—” His voice suddenly broke. 

“Afraid of what?” snapped Devon. 

Scotty gulped. Then in a tone of death, he said: “Cap¬ 
tain, I’m afraid our goose is cooked. The whole vertical 
rudder is carried away from the bottom post up! We 
must have struck when we skipped the pressure ridge.” 

“Absolutely gone,” added Bliss brokenly. 

With a look of desperation on his drawn face Captain 
Devon lowered himself into the car below. “The men 
are all in,” he muttered. “I wonder—” He shook his 
head wearily. This last blow was almost too crushing 
for human will to bear. 



CHAPTER XI 
VOICES IN THE NIGHT 



ND, Padilla —” 
i “Yessir.” 


± X «T e ll the radio chief I want to see him.” 
“Yessir—yessir.” 

“And bring in some more coffee—a lot more. 
“Yessir.” 

The Filipino boy with a patch over one eye from his 
recent bout with the mess-room table darted for the door. 

“Padilla!” roared the Skipper. “Which are you going 
to do first?” 

“The coffee, sir?” queried the brown boy anxiously. 
“No!” 

“Oh—the radio—?” 


No!’ 


Padilla stared at his commanding officer. They were 
all crazy, these white men—these Americans who were 
not content to live on the earth where they were born 
and do the things their fathers had done before them. 
Even their language was an insane jumble. 

“Padilla,” the Skipper chuckled softly, “do ’em both 

first!” 

“What a man!” thought Bliss, as the bewildered mess 
attendant disappeared. That Captain Devon had the 
temerity to joke at such a time as this was beyond his 
comprehension. 

He glanced around the little wardroom. Its former 
luxury was now a thing of the past. Wreckage of the 
mess table lay lashed against the after bulkhead. But 


95 


ZR WINS! 


three of the aluminum chairs remained out of the original 
dozen. The Skipper was perched on one; Scotty’s vast 
bulk filled and overflowed the second. Bliss braced him¬ 
self wearily on the third. For the ZR-5, despite the lee 
in which she was moored, still swung and danced with 
incessant jerky movements that made sleep or even rest 
wholly out of the question. 

Even the standing lights burned with a sickly glare, 
the voltage having dropped when the last smash-up short- 
circuited the main generator. 

A tall cadaverous youth with a roving jaundiced eye 
staggered in. “Wish to see me, sir?” he asked in a thin 
voice. 

“Hello, Sparks!” the Skipper greeted him. “Home 
was never like this! Eh?” 

The dirigible sidestepped and dropped three feet with 
the swiftness of gravity. The radio operator clutched 
wildly at the nearest stanchion. An undulation ran up 
his long body as if a dangling rope had been given a 
shake. 

“No—sir,” he stammered weakly. “That is, sir—” 

“Buck up, Sparks!” laughed the Captain. “Now tell 
me, can you reach Point Barrow?” 

The operator shook his head. “No, sir. Not juice 
enough to cover fifty miles even if we jammed her on 
full. And we must be a couple of hundred miles out, 
aren’t we, sir?” 

The Skipper nodded. “A good deal more than that. 
Even allowing for drift.” He turned to Scotty. “McAl- 
ford, we’ve got to get that generator in as soon as pos¬ 
sible. With our rudder gone we might have to abandon 
the flight altogether. Steering by the engines would do 
for a while. But I doubt whether we could make North 
Cape that way. If we go adrift from this ice bank we’re 
lying behind now we should take up about the mouth of 
96 



VOICES IN THE NIGHT 


the Mackenzie River. We ought to shoot a radio through 
now, if possible, so that a relief party can be sent out 
along the coast to save what’s left of the ship.” 

Scotty moaned audibly. How the Skipper could sit 
and make plans for landing a wreck or breaking adrift 
was inconceivable. Yet common sense told him that the 
roaring blizzard outside which made the inside such a 
nightmare portended far worse possibilities than just 
dropping peacefully off the drifting dirigible somewhere 
along the northern coast of Canada. 

“How about a little news?” queried the Skipper. 

The wireless receiving set was brought and rigged. 
Fortunately the ZR’s aerials strung across her upper run¬ 
way were still intact. As they were well elevated and had 
a spread of nearly six-hundred feet their range was ex¬ 
cellent. 

Finding the radio operator too shaken to handle the 
mechanism McAlford fortified himself with a fresh cigar 
and began to tune in. Bliss stretched himself on the 
unsteady deck in hopes of getting a few winks of sleep. 
The Skipper alternated between trying nervously to light 
his pipe and securing intelligible messages from the half- 
frozen lookouts who appeared from time to time to report 
on the condition of the terribly strained moorings. Not 
only was there the constant risk that the lines would carry 
away with the terrific strain upon them; but there was 
the ever-present menace of the pressure ridge being rup¬ 
tured suddenly by a shift in the floe pressure on either 
side of it. Once the helpless ZR-5 got adrift again her 
destruction would be almost inevitable. She had no re¬ 
serve mooring hawsers. Even if the engines could be 
run full power now that her rudder was out of commis¬ 
sion, there was no means for steering her to safety clear 
of the ice. And once she began to break up there could 
be no course but to abandon her. In the event of such a 
97 



ZR WINS! 


calamity the poorly protected men must perish by cold 
and hunger before they could possibly make the march 
of several hundred miles to land. 

It must not be understood that the ZR’s equipment had 
been neglected. Every device for the safety and comfort 
of its crew that human ingenuity could invent had been 
provided before she even left Washington. Arctic cloth¬ 
ing, concentrated rations, even several small sledges and 
sledge rifles, had all been included in her stores. 

The airship’s present terrible plight was only a sample 
of the circumstances in which the pioneer in any geo¬ 
graphical field sooner or later finds himself. Weather of 
unexpected brutality. Base of supplies miles away. Phys¬ 
ical and nervous strain reducing the endurance of his men. 
Doubt, anxiety, suspense, all combining to undermine the 
judgment and the will. Admirable it was indeed that 
Captain Devon still had heart to sit in the shadowy horror 
of that swaying fragile box and listen to the voices of 
the night. 

“Crack-k-k-l-e! Buz-z-z-z!” 

“Attaboy!” murmured Scotty twirling the polished 
knobs. 

Came a faint weird voice as from an infinite distance: 
“. . . with us to-night—crackle—a violin solo—buz-z-z— 
from the Philadelphia Symphony and known— snapp!” 

“Must be Newark,” suggested Bliss. “Gee, Scotty, 
that’s six thousand miles away!” 

“. . . which follows in half an hour. And—buzz- 
z-z—” 

Silence. Then suddenly with a clearness that made 
Bliss sit up with a jerk and even the taciturn Devon 
tighten his teeth on his pipestem, broke the distant 
announcer’s voice through the myriad sounds of storm 
and creaking car: 

“A moment, please—a moment, please. I have to an- 

98 



VOICES IN THE NIGHT 


nounce a wonderful bit of news. WXC has just received 
by relay from its San Francisco representative a message 
picked up from the temporary broadcast station at Point 
Barrow.” 

“Now we’re in for it!” burst the Skipper. Bliss 
glanced up inquiringly. The announcer confirmed the 
Captain’s fears. 

“The greatest race in the history of the world has 
just begun. At nine-fifteen this morning mountain time 
a French plane hopped off for its bold attempt to fly 
across the North Pole. Engine trouble forced it down 
two miles from land. Norway’s entry not ready to 
start. ZR-5 got away in fine style at ten-eighteen moun¬ 
tain time. Her speed was estimated at about one hun¬ 
dred miles per hour. At eleven o’clock she passed out of 
sight still going strong. Just ahead of her was the Bel¬ 
gian plane. Immediately behind her was the British 
plane. . . . Crackle! Buz-z-z! By this time the ZR-5 
has reached the Top of the Globe. She must be hovering 
in the rays of the midnight sun over the Apex of our 
Sphere.” 

“Attaboy!” chuckled Scotty. 

. . the weather according to reports being ideal.” 

“Bull’s-eye!” chortled Scotty. “Ideal for flying kites, 
eh, Bliss?” 

“. . . on the Polar Ocean, which is 2,000 miles in 
diameter and has a total area of 3,600,000 square miles, 
larger than the whole United States! This vast sea is 
covered the year around with a field of heavy ice drifting 
to and fro under impulse of the tides and winds. In the 
peaceful arctic summer—” 

“Ha! Ha!” bubbled Scotty. “Did you get that?” 

Captain Devon held up his hand. “Pipe down, Mc- 
Alford. Maybe he’ll tell you something you don’t know.” 

“. . . teeming with birds that breed along the northern 

99 



ZR WINS! 


shores of North America. Seals basking on the ice. 
Roaming herds of caribou and musk oxen along the arctic 
prairies that skirt the Polar Basin.” 

Entered the boatswain. “Those after lines are chafing, 
Captain. I have done the best I can with some of that 
old canvas which we’ve been using as tarpaulins over the 
upper tanks. But I’m afraid they won’t last the night 
out.” 

. . conceivable that some day,” continued the voice, 
“that some day the Far North will be inhabited by a 
great fraction of the world’s white population.” 

“There you are, boatswain!” smiled the Skipper. 
“Why not stake out a little claim right here and now. 
Real-estate values bound to go up.” 

“Heaven forbid!” breathed the boatswain fervently and 
swung to a bulkhead fixture to keep himself from being 
thrown bodily upon his commander by the ZR’s awful 
lurching. 

“. . . Take the Roman Empire which flourished in the 
subtropical confines of the Mediterranean. When Julius 
Caesar visited England land brought back reports of 
people living there his fellow countrymen were incredu¬ 
lous. ‘Live in that cold northern country? Impossible!’ 
they cried. So may it be with the Polar Regions in years 
to come. Cold, no doubt; and rigorous beyond the 
strength of the average man to stand. But with its sum¬ 
mer sunshine day and night, its lovely . . . crack-k-k-le 
. . . buz-z-z-z—” 

The voice broke abruptly off. Thudding roar of the 
gale outside sifted in and pervaded the rocking car. 
Scotty twirled his knobs vehemently, venting his annoy¬ 
ance with savage bites upon his unlit stogie. 

“It’s gone!” he cried. “Whole aerial’s blowm away!” 

The boatswain, dangling from his fingerhold across the 
room shrugged his muffled shoulders. “Don’t see how it 
ioo 



VOICES IN THE NIGHT 


lasted this long, Mr. McAlfordhe growled. “Blowin’ 
hell and blue blazes out there. Hundred-and-ten-mile gale 
if it’s an inch! And them hawsers— 

As if in answer to his word the ZR lifted suddenly and 
with a violent lurch took on a new position nose down¬ 
ward at a sharp angle and swaying sidewise in a fashion 
that warned those aboard her that the moorings had be¬ 
gun at last to surrender to the storm. 

As before, the Captain led the fight to save his ship. 
Weary men sleeping fully dressed were hauled from 
snow-choked hatches and driven to the bitter task of 
renewing the ruptured lines. 

The nose hawsers still held. Also one amidships. But 
the latter had sprung in such a fashion that the ZR’s 
stern, which was no longer held at all, lifted high in the 
air and caught the full force of the gale as it swept across 
the summit of the pressure ridge. In consequence she 
danced and leaped about like a hobbled calf. 

Three men were sent crawling up the sloping inner 
runway dragging with them a manila coil in hope that 
the stern might be again secured. But their heroic effort 
proved in vain. When they reappeared through the after 
hatch and attempted to crawl down to the car beneath, the 
bucking ZR’s movements were so violent and the wind 
so strong that it was all they could do to hang on at all, 
much less try to work. 

By nearly superhuman labor the midships mooring was 
doubled and sufficient strain put on it to reduce the huge 
body’s dizzy swoops from side to side. Also the nose 
lines were tautened in such a way that the control car 
ceased to swing so perilously towards the near-by wall 
of ice. 

Officers and men worked shoulder to shoulder. Indeed, 
in the driving snow and dim light there was no means of 
distinguishing which was which among the struggling 
IOI 



ZR WINS! 


hooded gnomelike figures that staggered about from one 
rope to another. Only the dancing pigmy in their midst, 
Captain David Devon the indomitable, stood out as a dis¬ 
tinct identity in the losing battle against the blizzard. 

It began to look as if once more the crisis had been 
passed. To be sure, the dirigible was half standing on her 
nose with her after body fully exposed to the tempest. 
But so stoutly was she now secured that so long as the 
wall of ice held firm she would at least ride out the gale 
and have a fighting chance to reach land reasonably un¬ 
damaged, or even of continuing on her course. 

Then without warning either by sound or by movement 
the floe on which the crew had been working suddenly 
split. In both directions ran a jagged black line of widen¬ 
ing water which cut the pressure ridge at a point almost 
exactly opposite the ZR’s nose. 

“Get aboard!” screamed the Skipper. Like so many 
scurrying rats the men scrambled up. 

At almost the first crash the two bow lines, which hap¬ 
pened to be secured on opposite sides of the rupture, were 
carried away. This released the dirigible’s nose which 
rose at once. Unhappily the midships hawser held. As 
a result the 6oo-foot body seesawed downward crushing 
the starboard after engine-egg against the nearest pinnacle 
of ice. Two mechanics rolled out unhurt and dashed 
madly for the radio car near by. The next swoop upward 
swung them dizzily aloft clinging by teeth and toes wher¬ 
ever they could get a hold. 

From somewhere the boatswain appeared with a small 
hand-ax. He glanced wildly about for the Skipper. His 
face working, he waved the tool aloft. Captain Devon 
raised one hand in assent. The boatswain stooped and 
with a single hack severed the last remaining strand that 
held the ZR-5 to the demolished ridge. Freed at last she 
shot up. Her positive buoyancy was now far above nor- 
102 



VOICES IN THE NIGHT 


mal for she had lost two engine-eggs, nearly a ton of haw¬ 
sers abandoned on the ice, and considerable framing from 
both the larger cars. 

“If this isn’t the end,” said Bliss grimly to himself 
from a corner of the snow-swept pilot-house roof where 
he clung, “I’m a liar 1” 



CHAPTER XII 
LAND! 


I N FIVE minutes the altitude dials in the ZR’s chart- 
house read 3,500 feet. And she was still rising.. 
Also she had ceased her crazy antics. With a slight 
list to port due to the loss of her starboard engine-eggs she 
floated quietly. Behind the protection of the control 
car’s walls and windows one could not have told she was 
moving at all. 

Below her the ice pack was invisible. Only a gray 
smother of snow vapor marked the raging blizzard on its 
surface. Overhead the sky was cloudless, steely blue, and 
cold. Northeast, on its upward slope, rolled the early 
morning sun. 

Captain Devon stood at his old spot near the wheel. 
He Had not slept for thirty-six hours. His face, as were 
those of all aboard, was deeply lined. His eyes were 
blurred and shot with tiny lines of red. He munched a 
thick sandwich of bully beef. 

4 ‘Start the aquseator,” he commanded. “No telling 
when that wind will drop. But I don t want to be scrap¬ 
ing around up at this ceiling.” 

“Aye, aye, sir,” said McAlford, and repeated the orders 
by messenger to his assistant further aft. 

It may be explained to the uninitiated that change of 
level is gained by a dirigible in motion just as by a plane. 
Her horizontal rudder is tilted and she dips or rises ac¬ 
cordingly. But when the airship has no steerageway her 
rudder becomes a useless appendage. Resort is then had 
to another expedient: Water ballast is condensed from 
104 


LAND! 


the atmosphere by sucking air rapidly through a small bin 
of chloride salts. On the ZR-5 this device was called the 
aquaeator.” It enabled her to take on nearly a ton of 
>vater in an hour. Within twenty minutes of the Skip¬ 
per s command she was dropping slowly towards the pack. 

Bliss hung over a chart of the Polar Sea spread upon 
the little plotting table. A sort of ecstasy lit up his face. 

Wind nor’nor’west, Eppley,” the Skipper prompted 
him. “How does that put us? About the mouth of the 
Mackenzie River, doesn’t it?” 

Taking the dividers from, their rack Bliss stepped off 
the ZR’s first course and speed towards the Pole. 
“Hopped off around ten,” he murmured. “Ninety over 
the ground. Six hours, say 500 miles. Guess we must 
have made latitude 8i° north, sir.” 

“Don’t forget the wind was dead to the south at first. 
She’s backed only in the past hour.” 

“Yes, sir. And now we’re working south southeast.” 

“Mackenzie, Eppley?” 

“No, sir!” cried Bliss. “That is, I don’t think we 
ought to care just now!” 

Captain Devon stepped to his elbow. “What do you 
mean ?” 

With hands that trembled Bliss pointed to the ragged 
dotted line he had plotted on the chart’s white surface to 
indicate the dead reckoning route the ZR-5 had so far 
taken. “Right across the unexplored area!” he exclaimed. 
“If there’s land we’ll find-it! The very course I wanted 
the Navy Department to have her take!” 

The Skipper chuckled. “Better look out, Eppley. 
They’ll say you got us into this mixup just to carry out 
your ideas.” 

Bliss sprang to the window and studied the gray hori¬ 
zon southward. But his scrutiny went unrewarded. 

“Why not go on top?” suggested the Skipper. 

105 



ZR WINS! 


Quickly the word went about that land might be dis¬ 
covered. Scarcely had Bliss crawled panting out on the 
lofty runway at the very summit of the dirigible than 
the entire crew began to straggle up. 

“Take a good look, lads,” enjoined the Captain. “You 
are nearly over the center of the million square miles of 
unexplored polar pack.” 

All craned their necks in appreciation of the spectacle. 
Yet, as scenery, the view was certainly disappointing. A 
vast circular waste of drift-grayed ice below; the red sun 
just north; the cold clean sky overhead. And the bitter 
penetrating wind to dull all sense of beauty a man might 
have. 

“Still dropping, McAlford?” 

“Yes, sir; under two thousand now.” 

Captain Devon scanned the northern sector with his 
glasses. 

“Very well, stop her. I believe the wind is easing off. 
See that clear streak there ?” 

Turning again to the men, some of whom were already 
showing signs of indifference to the thrill of being among 
the first to gaze upon an hitherto unseen portion of the 
globe, he went on: 

“We’re not the only aviators to drift across a portion of 
the Polar Sea. On the nth of July, 1897, the Swede, 
Andree, put off from Spitsbergen in a balloon. His idea 
was that air currents would carry him across the Pole. 
He used ropes dragging on the ice to guide him. Five 
hours after he started he threw out a buoy containing a 
message stating that he had passed the eighty-second 
parallel, and that all was well. That was the last the world 
ever heard from him. It is supposed he was struck by 
one of the summer blizzards which we have just so provi¬ 
dentially escaped and his balloon destroyed, leaving him 
and his two companions to perish on the ice.” 

106 




LAND! 


A shout from the outskirts of the listeners made all 
turn quickly and strain their wind-burned eyes along the 
dim horizon. 

“Over there, sir!” cried the boatswain, pointing a little 
south of east. 

Binoculars were leveled in the direction indicated. The 
Skipper shook his head. “Sorry, boatswain. Only a bit 
more wind.” 

Bliss’s heart, which had missed several beats at the 
cry, sank into his boots. As the Captain said, the boat¬ 
swain’s sharp eye had noted only a darker and higher 
irregularity in the heavy fog bank that still hung over the 
level of the ice. 

“There ought to be land here,” continued the Captain 
encouragingly, “because of the way the polar currents 
run. Am I right, Mr. Eppley?” 

Ignoring the bantering note in his questioner’s tone 
Bliss explained his theory. Not that he had any desire to 
convince the crew of the ZR-5 of its correctness. But he 
realized with terrible intensity how critical was the pres¬ 
ent situation. 

The dirigible was now temporarily safe, even though 
helpless. She would probably drift towards the northern 
coast of Canada and there be moored and repaired for 
another flight, unless the season grew too late. It was 
still conceivable that there might be a drop in the wind 
below, which would enable Captain Devon to bring her 
to the ice and attempt to get her going at once. She still 
stood to win the race across the Pole if only she could 
fly. But she could not fly until a jury rudder could be 
rigged. And this job was wholly out of the question 
until she could be brought to a position resting on the 
surface. 

By the purest whim of fortune she was now drifting 
over almost the exact area in which all available data 
107 



ZR WINS! 


indicated there was land. Yet this area was so tremen¬ 
dous that even if there did exist a Polar Continent of 
substantial size—the size of New England, say—it would 
be but another streak of luck to sight it from the ZR-5. 

Thus rose Bliss’ determination to stimulate the jaded 
interests of the men to search with all the eyesight the 
gale had left them for something that might look like 
land. 

The boatswain came over and asked permission to have 
a look through his glasses. “I may be mistaken, sir,” he 
explained. “But that sure looks funny over there.” He 
waved his hand at the darkish smear he had reported the 
moment before. 

Before Bliss had time further to study the spot he 
found himself called upon to answer an inquiry about the 
Jeannette. He replied: 

“She was commanded by Lieutenant De Long, an of¬ 
ficer of the United States Navy. He took her out of 
San Francisco in 1879 an d up through Bering Strait into 
the Polar Sea. He jammed her in the ice northwest of 
Alaska, hoping to drift across the Pole. She was crushed 
by pressure of the floes and De Long with many of his 
companions perished. The interesting part about the 
Jeannette was, that her wreckage drifted across the Polar 
Sea just as De Long had predicted and came down past 
the east coast of Greenland. Nansen twenty years later 
repeated her drift in his Fram. Such facts as these con¬ 
stitute a very substantial part of the proof that we should 
find land right here where we are to-night. Only a large 
island somewhere hereabouts could well account for the 
peculiarity of the polar currents that swept—” 

A loud shout broke from the boatswain: 

“It isn’t land! But it’s smoke!” 

A thrill of excitement swept the shivering men. Every 
eye swung eastward. The mist of drifting snow had 
108 



LAND! 


thinned. Through it was visible the faint but unmistak¬ 
able line of the horizon. Almost dead east from the ZR-5 
there rose from this line an inverted “V” of heavy black 
vapor. A moment later through his binoculars Bliss saw 
with beating heart a low and pinkish nubble barely jut¬ 
ting over the edge of his vision’s limit. 

“It is land!” he cried exultingly. 

A spontaneous cheer broke from the throats of the men 
about as Captain David Devon gripped the hand of his 
stowaway and exclaimed: 

“By God, you deserve it, Eppley, if ever a man de¬ 
served anything in this danged life!” 



CHAPTER XIII 
A DESPERATE PLAN 


I T WAS characteristic of the arctic that by the time the 
ZR-5 once more reached the level of the pack the 
blizzard had subsided. 

Scotty rubbed his eyes. “Say, Bliss,” he said as the 
white floes sparkling in the incandescent sunshine came 
gently up to meet the battered airship, “is this a dream? 
Or am I just waking from, the doggonedest nightmare 
I’ve ever had?” 

The other looked up from the pad on which he was 
scribbling a list of traveling gear. 

“I’d think an inventory of your department would 
tell you whether it was a nightmare or not. Two engines 
wrecked, leaks in fuel tanks five and six, generator burnt 
out, aerials—” 

McAlford clapped his hands to his ears. “Have a 
heart!” he cried. “Spare me the horrid details and I’ll 
admit the rest!” 

But Captain Devon was even more agonizingly spe¬ 
cific. For when the ZR-5 had lowered with an imper¬ 
ceptible touch upon the marble table of an old unbroken 
pan nearly a quarter of a mile in diameter he called a 
council of war. 

“I believe that we can get enough out of our four 
engines to take us to land,” he began. He made a rough 
mental calculation. “It’s at least a hundred miles to that 
volcano we sighted. If this still weather and perfect 
visibility keep up we ought to be able to do around fifty. 
It’s close to six o’clock now. If any of those lame ducks 
no 


A DESPERATE PLAN 


at Point Barrow are back in commission this morning 
they can’t possibly be out here much before noon. It’s 
off their course besides. Thus we can allow ourselves 
two hours for repairs and three hours to make the flight, 
and still stand a hundred to one chance that we shall be 
the first to set foot upon the new continent.” 

“Except the Norsemen,” retorted Bliss under his 
breath. “If I’ve been right this far, may I not be right 
about them?” A little cold ripple ran up his spine at 
the thought. 

At this moment the boatswain came up. Albeit he was 
a powerfully built man and temperamentally optimistic, 
this morning he seemed weakened both in body and in 
spirit. 

“I don’t want to be a quitter, Captain,” he began with 
more than a suspicion of protest in his heavy voice. 

The Skipper said nothing. It was his way rather to 
let men give vent to their feelings than have them accu¬ 
mulate an emotional pressure which must ultimately ex¬ 
plode and do far more damage than dispute at an open 
forum. 

The dirigible had no more mooring hawsers, the boat¬ 
swain pointed out in vivid language. The strands of 
spare aerial, car lashings, balloon lacings, and other trash 
that he had been able to collect on the spur of the moment 
might do well to hold her with the air as beautifully still 
as now. “But—” he glanced shudderingly over his shoul¬ 
der—“if another of them eruptations hits us, sir, as hit 
us just last night, we’re gone babies, sir! I’m tellin’ 
you!” 

The Skipper smiled at the big man’s comic despair. It 
was a reassuring smile, one calculated to dispel the boat¬ 
swain’s unhappy prognostications. Yet it failed. 

It failed for the reason that the boatswain’s fears were 
laid on solid facts. The facts were these: Despite the 
hi 



ZR WINS! 


still calm air, the sparkling sunshine, the glorious depth 
of cloudless azure sky, the vastly leveler ice pack of the 
open sea, despite all these conditions which were abso¬ 
lutely ideal for any sort of polar travel, the case of the 
ZR-5 was little short of desperate. Two engines lost, 
the remaining four all crippled. Control car battered 
almost beyond recognition. One hundred and fifty feet 
of forward sheathing torn and shredded. Fuel danger¬ 
ously low. Radio wrecked. All electric circuits and gen¬ 
erators paralyzed. Rudders, both vertical and horizontal, 
hanging in strings and tatters. The once-great airship, 
swift and powerful as a fabled monster of the skies, now 
weak and flabby like an enormous silver-bellied narwhal 
that had been slain and drawn upon the ice for butchering. 

McAlford, dissatisfied with the reports he had received 
on the condition of the rudder struts, clambered up for 
personal inspection. He rejoined the council with a look 
that told more plainly than words the hopelessness of the 
case. 

“Both spindles absolutely ruined!” he groaned. “It 
will take forty-eight hours at least to rig a jury rudder!” 

“How about steering with the engines?” 

He shook his head and his mouth drew grimly taut. 

“Captain, I’m just as set as Eppley here on getting to 
that land. I know it’s the chance of a lifetime.” 

“Of ten lifetimes!” burst Bliss. 

Scotty shot him a look of compassion. He alone knew 
what the discovery meant to his friend. 

“But human endeavor can only go so far, sir. I’m 
afraid now that if we try to run the engines out of bal¬ 
ance, that is with higher speed to port or starboard in 
order to shift our course, we’ll rip the eggs right off 
her. ’Twould mean the death of every man on watch. 
And, as the boatswain says, if we get into another bit of 
wind we won’t just lose the ZR-5, but the crew aboard 
112 



A DESPERATE PLAN 


her will perish. Not that Pm afraid to die,” he added 
quickly. 

With impassive face and silence Captain Devon met the 
outburst. If he believed what his engineer had told him 
he made no sign. If he were inwardly perturbed his fear 
was wholly hidden. If he had concluded, on the other 
hand, to throw all caution to the winds and stake every¬ 
thing on one last desperate effort to drive the ZR on, there 
was no outward hint either by word or by fragmentary 
gesture that this was so. 

Presently he glanced aft where two men were half¬ 
heartedly clearing the wreckage of the rudder. He swung 
his gaze to the egg of engine two, where the senior ma¬ 
chinist was cursing gas propulsion with all the profanity 
and technical language at his command. Then with the 
suddenness and violence of a powder explosion he turned 
upon the little group before him. 

“You dare stand around here and talk!” he thundered, 
“while the whole world thinks you’ve won!” In a sweep 
his arm flung southward. “A hundred million people 
helped build this ship of ours! A hundred million men 
and women backed us with their pennies and their pray¬ 
ers! We’re heroes in their eyes. And we’re driving 
mile on mile, so they were told by radio last night, down 
the other side of the Polar Sea. Do you hear me? The 
other side of the Polar Sea!” The arm dropped weakly 
to his side. “And what is the truth? A wreck. ... A 
cripple. ... A hopeless bag of wind! And manned— 
his voice lowered to a. whisper—“manned by a gang of 
quitters!” 

“Not our fault, sir,” ventured the boatswain. 

With a snarl like a wildcat’s the little Skipper sprang 
towards him: “Fault!” he spat at the purpling Swede. 
“Who cares for ‘faults’ ? Can excuses ever take the place 
of results?” 

ii3 



ZR WINS! 


How strange is the genius of leadership! To cajole one 
minute, cruelly to drive the next. To damn and then to 
praise. To coax and then chastise. To propitiate, then 
spurn. To infuriate, then forgive. Dark before the dawn, 
sunshine after rain. Endless stimulating variety that 
leaves the subordinate thrilled or angry, vindictive or 
determined, but never for one single moment aware of 
the monotony of his task. 

So went it with the minutes after Captain Devon’s 
scarcely warranted attack upon his mate. Unable to turn 
his superior the boatswain half trotted down the ice floe, 
fire belching from his nostrils, so to speak. The first man 
he encountered sought to chaff him for the Skipper’s 
“bawling out.” A happy accident, that. For before the 
eyes of half the crew he bowled the teaser over with a 
blow between the eyes. 

“Turn to, you bunch of loafers!” It was the bellow 
of an angry bull. And his shipmates knowing him of 
old, turned to with avid vigor that took no count of 
danger, time, nor toil. 

The Skipper turned to Bliss. Fire had gone out of 
his eyes. But there was a quaver of passion in his voice 
as he spoke. 

“Two things, Eppley, I’ve chalked against me in my 
conscience as I stand,” solemnly he said. “One is the 
fact I know at last the single-handed battle you’ve been 
fighting. The other, that earlier to-day I almost weak¬ 
ened and considered drifting back to safety before we took 
her north again.” 

Strong words indeed. Yet sometimes, as Scotty said, 
human endeavor can only go so far. 

Two hours slipped by. Hours of frantic labor. Fresh 
propellers were shipped to take the place of the ones 
ruined in the last night’s storm. From the girders that 
had been underpinning of the engine wreckage was fash- 
114 



A DESPERATE PLAN 


ioned framework for a rudder. The frazzled lacing that 
had held the dangerous rent in the main bag’s forward 
sheathing through the blizzard was ripped out and relaced 
in double rows. 

No time was taken to eat. Coffee and hot pannikins of 
food were doled out at intervals. The boatswain’s wrath 
became transmuted by his memory of Eppley’s words to 
a fever of exploratory passion. Standing over a sweating 
group of workers, or wrestling with them at some stub¬ 
born bolt or wire, he sketched in lurid terms the amazing 
promise just ahead. He drew from some exotic mem¬ 
ory a land of fiery heights, of mellow verdured valleys, 
and peopled by a race more fearful than the cannibals of 
the Fijis, more fascinating than the fabled races of the 
stars. Hearing which, with the thrill of little children, 
the sailors slaved. Progress was made. Substantial 
progress. Yet by no means progress enough. For close 
to nine o’clock Bliss sought the Skipper in a mood of 
desperation. 

“It’s Welchor, sir!’’ he cried. “He’s due to get away 
this morning. He knows that the others are all out of 
the race. He has every reason to believe that we, too, are 
quite done for. So he need not try to fly direct across 
the Pole. He will take a zigzag route. He will see the 
land that we have seen. He will reach it first. He will 
steal right out of our very hands the prize he doesn’t 
deserve!’’ 

“Steady, Eppley,” soothed the Skipper. “What you 
say has something in it, provided your conjecture about 
Thorne Welchor’s villainy is correct. But what else can 
we do? Surely no men on earth could beat this gang’s 
speed right now.” 

Bliss glanced anxiously into the southwestern sky. He 
felt as if he should faint should there be seen the speck 
that would mean a plane. 

“5 



ZR WINS! 


“I have a plan, sir. A far less crazy plan that you 
would think of me.” He smiled deprecatingly. “You 
have materials for a small sledge in your stores. Let me 
break them out. Give me five days’ provisions. Com¬ 
pressed food. A rifle and a few rounds of ammunition 
for emergency. And I’ll reach that land in forty-eight 
hours!” 

A little sadly Devon shook his head. 

“I admire your willingness to try the thing. But it 
savors of the impossible.” 

“Not at all, sir!” came the eager response. “Remem¬ 
ber, I came overland from Nome. I am in excellent shape. 
From, the Eskimos I learned a bit about travel on the 
ice. There is no night. With a light sledge I could make 
tremendous marches. We did over fifty miles the day 
before we reached Point Barrow.” 

“But if Welchor does come, as you suggest, he will 
be out here to-day. What is the sense of your taking 
such tremendous risks when there is so remote a chance 
of profit?” 

“But, it isn’t so remote as you think, sir. Even if he 
starts to-day he may see us and drop down for a talk. 
It is his game still to keep friendly with you in order 
to divert suspicion. He might have to come down for 
water as the Belgian did. He might even decide not to 
alight when he first reaches the land. In any event we 
have seen it before he has. And if now I might put foot 
upon it and plant the flag it is bound to belong to the 
United States. Otherwise—” 

“By crickets, Eppley, I believe you have the right hunch 
after all!” Turning, he called McAlford from his en¬ 
gines. 

Two men were despatched at once to break out sledge 
and traveling material that had been made a part of the 
dirigible’s emergency equipment. A light pup tent, sleep- 
116 



A DESPERATE PLAN 


ing bag, camp ax, knife, line, and a five-pound, high- 
powered Winchester repeater with two hundred cartridges 
were found. A light patent arrangement of Primus stove 
and pot completed the living essentials. When the whole 
was assembled together on the ice it weighed less than 
fifty pounds. Yet, as Bliss’ long hunting experience told 
him, here was sufficient to keep a man comfortable for 
an indefinite period provided game were found. To 
avoid wasting time hunting at the outset two tins of oil 
and a bag of concentrated food were added. 

That Eppley was the man best fitted, as well as most 
deserving to make the dash, Captain Devon conceded at 
once. When it came to a companion he hesitated. Yet 
a second man he insisted upon. The danger of ice sledg¬ 
ing alone warranted sparing another for the trip. Also 
with two engines off the dirigible there were really four 
extra men available for work aboard her. 

“Would you be willing to try it?” he asked McAlford. 
“You two seem to be a pretty intimate pair of pirates.” 

“Would I!” exclaimed Scotty with the suddenness of a 
blasting charge. “Gosh!” Turning ruefully to his fagged 
toilers over the machinery, he added. “But can I desert 
my job here, sir?” 

The Skipper grinned his appreciation. “Won’t be de¬ 
sertion, McAlford. This is all just hack work now. 
Once we know you two are on your way we can take 
more time. We might be there as soon as you at that.” 

Abruptly the parley ended, for time was short. How 
short it was made Bliss squirm to think. 

Twenty minutes to pack. An extra wasted minute to 
select the proper chart and a pocket sextant, lest their 
pathway deviate. A handshake with the Skipper. A 
wave at the cheering men. And the little party set forth. 

Sewed inside of Bliss’s shirt was a small silk flag. He 
would plant it on the new land. He would see its bright 
ii 7 




ZR WINS! 


stars match the brilliance of the discovery, its stripes 
wave wands of ownership in the name of the country he 
loved. Then he would rescue the bit of colored silk to 
take it back and lay at the feet of his Joan. Yours 
dear,” he’d say. ... He could almost see her sweet eyes 
shine, the glow come into— 

“Say, old man,” broke a worried voice at his elbow. 
“D’you suppose we’ll be away longer than a hundred 
cigars? That’s all I dared bring with the Old Man look¬ 
ing on,” 



CHAPTER XIV 
ACROSS THE FLOES 


T HE effrontery of it! 

How the Demons of the North must have 
writhed in mortification! For in the full 400 
years of war that iron men, from Hakluyt to Peary, had 
waged to wrest the secrets of the North from out its 
cold and darkness, there had been a substance of equality 
in the contest. Explorers of superhuman endurance had 
been pitted against incalculable cold and dark and bitter 
suffering. Year upon year they had struggled and fought 
and died. Rotting with scurvy, staggering with hunger, 
speechless from frost that penetrated the very marrow 
of their bones did Peary, Greely, Kane, and all the others 
of their fearless breed creep into the heart of the North 
to feed their tortured souls upon its sullenly surrendered 
secrets. 

And now on this sparkling morning in June for a pair 
of light-clad absurdly sanguine mariners to tread the 
sacred floes! 

Mayhap the very boldness of their effort saved them. 
For as if in stunned indifference the wind and weather 
held their peace while the two adventurers trudged across 
the icy plain. 

The going was excellent, which was to be expected, 
from what little we know of the vast wilderness of the 
Polar Sea. For their route lay in an easterly direction 
some 500 miles north of the Alaskan coast and more 
than 300 northwest of the uninhabited shores of Prince 
Patrick Island. At this distance from any continental 
119 


ZR WINS! 


barrier the main pack was less broken. Long gently rol¬ 
ling stretches of ice and wind-packed snow lay spread on 
every hand. Only the scattered bergs and nubbles of old 
ridges broke the monotony of the great white desert over 
which they traveled. 

McAlford, stockily built and sheathed to some extent 
in human blubber, albeit healthy tissue, suffered in com¬ 
parison with the wiry Indian at his side. But over the 
occasional pressure ranges that must be hurdled his pow¬ 
erful back was mostly called upon to juggle the precious 
sledge. So, though the temperature still hung under 
freezing despite the blazing sun, he panted and dripped 
with sweat while his leaner team mate traveled dry. 

When the sun drove over the meridian Eppley called 
a halt. 

“Not too hard, old scout,” he cautioned. “This is a 
marathon all right, a double-barreled one as far as dis¬ 
tance is concerned. But what counts now, you under¬ 
stand, is time.” 

The big man wiped his streaming face. “I’m soaked,” 
he said. “I’m blistered in the feet and on the nose. I 
feel like a broiled live lobster and a dirty deck-swab 
bound in one. But dammit man, don’t stop on my 
account!” 

Bliss laughed. While he could not put it into words, 
there was something at once comic and heroic in Mc¬ 
Alford that defied the shadows of discouragement. 

In five minutes the little Primus hummed. Half a 
gallon of steaming tea was brewed. A cracked brace in 
the sledge bed was lashed. . . . Then the grind began 
again. 

A mile beyond the halting place they came upon an ice 
peak higher than any yet they’d seen. From its summit 
a road was chosen forward. Thus might time be saved. 
For while the general spread was flat, the presence of 
120 



ACROSS THE FLOES 


land to eastward was already making itself felt in a low 
but unmistakable series of parallel undulations bespeak¬ 
ing pressure from that direction. 

No longer was the ZR’s silvery dome in sight. Not 
a bird, nor rock, nor any single spot to break the awful 
desolation spread about. Ice, ice, ice, wide as the sky 
almost. . . . Unknown. Desolate. Dead. Silent. 

“Gosh!” muttered McAlford, “but this is sure one 
hell of a part of the world! It’s beautiful and it’s ugly; 
both at the same time.” 

“Wouldn’t you say cruel rather than ugly?” Bliss 
suggested. 

The former gave a little shudder. “Maybe so. But 
anyway, it gives me creeps. Makes me feel as if it 
wouldn’t care whether I dropped out here or not. As if 
it might even like to see me staggering around in drifts 
and dying on my feet!” 

Came to them both a vision of the future. Hurtling 
monsters of the air driving back and forth across the 
top of the world as now our ocean liners plow the seven 
seas. The sudden storm, buffeting the hugest craft upon 
the ice. . . . The wreck. . . . The aftermath of human 
sheep huddled before the snow-knives of the blizzard. . . . 

“But there will be ways invented,” Bliss resumed, 
“just as ways have been invented against the perils of 
the sea.” 

“Only before they are invented,” persisted the gloomy 
Scot, “think of the horrors that will come. Ugh!” 

On and on the plodding sledgers. Round rolled the 
sun; unblinking; unshadowed by a vapor; unmarred by 
fleck of cloud. Surely Fate spun luck at last. 

The sun bore north and very red when the two men 
paused and faced each other questioningly. 

“I’m done,” gasped McAlford, and flung himself upon 
the snow. 


121 



ZR WINS! 


“No more than I,” Bliss told him promptly. Which 
was kindness more than truth. For the inner fire of hope 
that drove him on was yet unquenched. Physical fatigue 
did not exist. Outcry of muscles for surcease from their 
torment scarcely touched his consciousness. “He hasn’t 
come!” he fiercely told himself. “Scotty,” he cried aloud, 
“those devils haven’t come! We’ve made fifty miles if 
we’ve made an inch to-day! Look at that smoke cloud 
now! It’s been piling up since ten! A few miles more 
and we’ll see the land itself! If Welchor didn’t start 
to-day we have a chance! Man, we have a chance!” 

Bowed down by physical distress McAlford responded 
to his raving mate with what small strength was left 
him. 

“Go it, man,” he muttered heavily. “You’re a horse! 
Start your sleep now. I’ll fix the chow. Get away early 
without me. I’ll bring the sledge. I’ll catch you before 
you starve. Traveling light you may make land to¬ 
morrow.” 

Drone of Scotty’s voice ceased. But a low and tuneless 
echo of it continued. At first each thought the other 
might be humming. Yet each man looking up knew 
promptly he had erred. With an exclamation of dismay 
Bliss searched the sky. But no airplane motor ever 
whined so plaintively as this. 

Apprehensively McAlford glanced around. Only ice, 
endless unbroken leprous ice, rewarded his anxious gaze. 

Then abruptly, Eppley laughed. So hoarse he was he 
cackled. 

“Pressure, Scotty. That’s all it is!” 

“Wind again ? Heaven help us!” 

“Probably not. Shift of tide most likely. The whole 
pack being dragged against the land we’re after, and 
jammed tightly into shore.” 

The low and ghastly moan increased. From a nubbled 
122 



ACROSS THE FLOES 


ridge near by broke suddenly a series of staccato pops. 
A rectangular cake the size of a five-ton truck lifted 
bodily, heeled and tumbled crashing backwards through 
the thin-iced table of a small fresh pool on the surface of 
the adjacent floe. A pistol shot now rent the air. Both 
men jumped nervously. 

“Watch yourself!” cried Bliss, and pointed towards the 
sledge. A writhing split in the solid ice on which it 
rested came crackling towards them opening as it ran, 
and passed directly under the stove and tent which had 
been unlashed. 

In trepidation a new camp site was chosen on what 
appeared to be a firmer floe. But the grinding, tearing 
tumult went on unabated, an unearthly orchestra terrify¬ 
ing to the ear. 

Bliss rigged the tiny tent in the lee of a wall of ice. 
He hacked out blocks to weight it down while Scotty 
boiled water for their stew of suet beef and bread. 

Over the cheerless blue flame of the Primus the mor¬ 
row was discussed. Scotty’s daring scheme to separate 
was negatived by both after brief consideration. The 
risk was scarcely justified as yet. Possibly Welchor had 
had some engine trouble of his own. Surely he would 
drop and have a chat with Devon on his way out if he 
sighted the crippled dirigible. In either case would ensue 
sufficient delay to permit them to reach the volcano still 
smoking away on the eastern horizon. 

Sleep came swiftly to the tired pair. And, except for 
an occasional uneasy half return to consciousness when 
the grinding pack ice grew obstreperous, neither stirred. 

McAlford, awakened by pain of overstrained muscles, 
was out first. Bliss heard him fumbling with the Primus, 
softly cursing to himself in the frosty morning air. His 
footsteps crunched across the snowy surface. Followed 
then the sound of fresh ice chopped for morning tea. 

123 



ZR WINS! 


Suddenly the chopping stopped. A moment of silence. 
Then broke upon the chill air a loud cry. An instant 
later thudding steps towards the tent. 

“Hey! Wake up! For Pete’s sake come and look!” 
The excitement in his companion’s voice compelled Bliss 
to scramble half naked from his bag and dash anxiously 
outside. 

It was a footprint. Like Robinson Crusoe discovering 
the track in the sand, so had Me Alford gazed with trepi¬ 
dation upon two indentations upon a small patch of soft 
snow beyond the camp. They were large for a man. 

“Must have been wearing a boot,” muttered Bliss. 

Then to both came the same thought. Was it possible 
that Welchor had flown out while they were asleep, keep¬ 
ing his plane at such an altitude as to prevent their hear¬ 
ing the noise of his engine? It was a likely thing to have 
happened, Eppley pointed out, for the man was anxious 
only to make sure that he would be first upon the new 
land. . . . How he must have chuckled to himself, peer¬ 
ing at the camp and its unsuspecting sleepers! 

“Do you suppose he really slid down and had a look ?” 
murmured McAlford in crestfallen tones. “One on us 
all right! And it means that he is there by this time. I 
suppose we may as well go back, don’t you?” 

No reply. He glanced up. Bliss was staring west¬ 
ward, his eyes shaded. Suddenly the latter turned and 
ran for the sledge. He pulled his glasses from their 
case and leveled them, upon the horizon in the direction 
from which they had come. After a moment he said 
quietly: 

“It might just as well have been that, Scotty. But it 
isn’t. Here he is now, unless my eyes deceive me.” 

Low in the west, as he said, McAlford saw a speck in 
the sky. 


124 



CHAPTER XV 
THE LAST DASH 

A CURIOUS hesitancy began to mark the plane’s 
advance. In a long easy turn it swung due south. 
For a few minutes it steadily climbed. Then it 
dipped, nosed downward half a thousand feet, and turned 
again. Again it climbed. It swerved to north. Another 
dip. ... 

Suddenly dawned the truth upon the anxious pair ot 

watchers. # 

“He’s looking for us, of course!” cried Bliss. He has 
seen the crippled ZR-5. He realizes she is out. Also 
he has sighted the land. Being no fool he perceives that 
the Skipper would not give up so close as this. A sledge 
dash is the natural thing to be resorted to.” 

“But what’s the sense of his finding us even if he does 
figure we’re on our way?” 

“Simply he wants to be on the safe side. Unscrupu¬ 
lous as he is he would think nothing of dropping down 
here and putting a crimp into our expedition if it suited 

his plans.” , 

“I know,” persisted McAlford, “but why doesnt he 

go straight on for the land?” 

Bliss laughed shortly. “Simply because it’s his game 
to build a reputation for decency. Once he makes sure 
he stands no chance to lose from a sledge party he can 
go back and slime himself around the ZR-5- Offer help 
and sympathy and the like. . . . Anyway his presence 
here is our cue to hide until he’s gone.” 

Back swung the plane to a course that would bring it 

125 


ZR WINS! 


directly over the two. Quickly Bliss hacked some ice 
blocks from the nearest upthrust. By spreading these 
loosely over the sledge and load he camouflaged them into 
rubbish of the pack. 

Fifty yards away was a low berg frozen into the main 
floe. One side had been lately split by pressure. To this 
refuge they dashed, for it promised concealment from 
the searching plane above them. 

Nearer sped the plane. Peering through a crevice over¬ 
head Bliss saw it turn. For an instant his heart stood 
still. Had Welchor seem them after all? 

“If so, he’ll simply slide along to the land,” he mut¬ 
tered. “An hour from now he’ll stand there and gloat 
over how he’s tricked us all!” 

“Shut up!” whispered Scotty, craning his neck. 

“Do you imagine he can hear, you idiot?” chuckled 
Bliss. . . . 

Their hiding place proved successful. A few turns 
more and the plane turned sharply west. Apparently 
her occupants had concluded their road was clear. Now 
they could afford to mock their victims on the ZR-5 with 
urgent offers of help, and with false sympathy and en¬ 
couragement. 

With a sense of vast relief Bliss wormed clear of the 
crevice. As he stepped out an iron grip closed about his 
neck and he was yanked back bodily into the hole. 

“Holy trunnels, look at that!” gasped Scotty behind 
him. 

Near the sledge stood a bear. A huge thick-necked 
polar bear the size of a Texas steer with a chest spread 
twice as broad. It had discovered the hidden camp gear. 
Around the pile of ice it walked, warily and in doubt. 
It sniffed. Gingerly reaching out with one massive paw 
it removed a lump; withdrew; sniffed audibly; removed 
another. 


126 



THE LAST DASH 


“And the rifle’s in the pack!” groaned Bliss. Even the 
ax and hunting knives were there. Unarmed and help¬ 
less the two men watched. 

Presently the bear turned and raised his coal-black 
nose. He was directly to leeward. Whiff of a strange 
odor pricked his quivering nostrils. He became for one 
long moment a frozen image, a milk-white statue against 
blue ice behind. Then with a roar that reverberated 
through the crevice where huddled the two very embar¬ 
rassed travelers the creature reared up and started for 
them. 

“Say,” sputtered Scotty, “I’m going to beat it!” 

But Bliss seized his arm before he could escape. “Don’t 
be a fool!” he hissed. “A bear can always outrun a man. 
He’ll get you before you’ve gone fifty yards.” 

“But he’ll murder us if we stay here!” 

“Listen,” Bliss curbed his friend’s panic, “you stay 
here. I am thin enough to squeeze through the far end 
of this crack. Keep the bear amused. 111 make a sneak 
around behind the berg and get the gun.” 

“Keep the hear amused!” wailed McAlford. Bliss 
chuckled. “Oh, very well,” sighed Scotty resignedly. 
“But if you come back and find Mister Bear and me in 
a nice little game of pinochle, don’t butt in! 

Worming his way through the narrow space behind, 
Bliss put the berg between himself and the aroused ani¬ 
mal. Judging by the snarls and snorts from the other 
side McAlford must be engaging the bear’s attention with 
success. 

A short dash and he reached the sledge. He snatched 
the rifle from its case. The bear heard and turned. His 
roar of anger at such trickery was bloodcurdling. For 
a moment he hesitated, torn between lust for the trapped 
McAlford’s blood, and fury at Eppley’s unexplained in¬ 
trusion. Bliss knelt, took long aim just under the shaggy 
127 



ZR WINS! 


shoulder, and fired. The bear sprang up and stiffened. 
Pawing madly at its breast it staggered back a pace. Then 
with one great gasping gulp it thudded down upon the 
floe, stone dead. 

Mystery of the footprint was now clear. For near the 
sledge where the bear had trod a yielding snow patch they 
found the same broad bootlike hollow that Scotty’s 
startled eyes had seen an hour before. 

There was no time for butchering the fine animal. The 
beautiful skin must be abandoned. “Another time,” was 
Eppley’s rueful thought, “and I’d have a trophy worth 
bragging about!” 

Yet bruin served his purpose. For with the excite¬ 
ment of his kill and a sirloin from his flank they pushed 
on almost gayly. 

Unbroken marching does not lend itself to words. In 
war the soldier plods and talks. From out a farmhouse 
women run and wave. Dogs bark. Men faint for 
weariness. Another troop winds by. . . . All sustain¬ 
ing tonics in the long day’s grind. 

Not so with sledging on the polar pack. Peary, cross¬ 
ing the Greenland ice cap with Astrup as his sole com¬ 
panion, wrote: “One walked ahead that the other might 
fix his gaze on some specific object. Else in the empty 
desert we should have gone mad.” 

With going good Eppley trudged ahead an hour. Then 
came five minutes, halt and relaxation. Next an hour, 
McAlford in the van, Eppley pushing sledge. And so 
on, a deadly unbroken toil over ice, more ice, an infini¬ 
tude of ice. Naught else. . . . 

At noon the smoke cloud east showed at its base a red- 
brown dab of color streaked and splotched with white; 
land snow buried. By three the dab was clearly land, a 
lofty conical peak sharp cut against the sky. 

At early evening—the arctic sun still high and bright— 
128 



THE LAST DASH 


a high ridge cut the trail at nearly a right angle. From 
the summit of it, sixty feet above the pack, the explorers 
got their first good view of their discovery. 

The volcano seemed to mark the land’s southern ex¬ 
tremity. From it, northward as far as the eye could 
reach, spread an undulating plain. Further inland were 
visible snow-clad peaks in disorderly array whose conic 
outlines defined them also as volcanic. The one ahead, 
however, bore the only sign of active fire. Dense black 
billows rolled skyward from its crater and drifted with 
the light southwestern breeze. 

To Bliss’s “We can’t stop here 1 ” McAlford responded 
with a groan. He was reaching his limit of physical 
endurance. For the past two hours he had been limping. 
Only by dogged determination had he even kept his feet. 

Another hour of torment and the land seemed close 
enough to touch. At the base of the volcano could be 
seen a high black cliff that sprang vertically from the sea 
ice. 

Knowing his friend was close to the end of his tether 
Bliss suggested pushing ahead alone. 

“Welchor may come any minute now,” he pointed 
out. “And there’s a haze down south I don’t like. We 
mustn’t get caught in fog when we are practically there. 
I’ll make for the northern end of the cliff, take possession 
of the land, and wait for you there.” 

McAlford, scarcely able to speak in the extremity of 
his exhaustion, assented. He suggested the rifle and 
food. “Can’t tell what may happen. Remember the 
bear,” he said bravely. 

But there was only one rifle. Eppley would be on the 
move. It was a risk, to be sure. But he of the two had 
the greater chance to sidestep danger. Moreover, should 
Welchor’s plane come now all would be lost. So it was 
agreed he should go on unarmed. 

129 



ZR WINS! 


Despite the precious minutes it took, tea was brewed 
before the separation. Over his steaming cup Bliss spoke 
a final warning. 

“If you sight them try to flag them down. Run in 
circles; wave your arms. Do anything to attract their 
attention, except you mustn’t shoot at them.” 

“Why not?” asked Scotty in sudden savage vigor at 
the hot tea’s stimulation. 

“Because even in exploration there are ground rules 
that have been observed since the beginning of time. 
Welchor may be a scoundrel and murderer himself, but 
that is no reason why we should descend to his level.” 

And so they parted. 

A few hours later, just as Eppley had suggested, Mc- 
Alford spotted the plane once more headed for the land. 
Whereupon he proceeded vigorously to carry out the in¬ 
structions he had received to attract her occupants’ atten¬ 
tion. Despite his failing strength he dashed from the 
tent, raced across the floe and back, sprang into the air, 
and generally behaved like a wild man and a whirling 
dervish combined. His antics were soon successful. The 
machine swerved and dipped. 

“This may give Bliss an extra hour at least,” he mut¬ 
tered. “If only I can keep these ginks entertained!” 

The plane drifted noiselessly upon the floe, ran swiftly 
for a hundred yards, slowed and stopped. Welchor clam¬ 
bered out, followed by his accomplice Scammell. Both 
were attired in the latest style of flying suits, putting up 
a smart contrast to the barbarous-looking sledger. 

“Hello, McAlford,” Welchor greeted him enthusias¬ 
tically and came forward, hand outstretched. Scotty ig¬ 
nored it. 

“All got grouches,” sneered Scammell just behind him. 
“What’s the use of fooling with them?” 

“Shut your trap, Scammell!” snapped the former. 

130 



THE LAST DASH 


“You have the worst grouch of all!” Turning to Me Al¬ 
ford, “I think it’s pretty tough luck you’ve had, old 
man,” he observed sympathetically. “We stopped back 
there by the ZR-5. She certainly is a wreck. I don’t 
know whether you know it or not, but she had an explo¬ 
sion after you left and is now done in for good. The 
crew are going to start for land at once. I shall send 
out a relief party on my return.” 

“What—how did it happen?” stammered Scotty, find¬ 
ing his tongue at last. 

“Can’t say. Those dirigibles are always getting into 
trouble. At any rate, there is no sense in your trying to 
reach her again. Captain Devon told me to tell you and 
Eppley that he would appreciate it if you would accom¬ 
pany me back to Point Barrow and help us with our plans 
for rescuing the airship’s crew.” 

“Did he send me a note?” inquired Scotty suspiciously. 

“Note? . . . Not that I know of. Scammell, did you 
see any note?” 

The evil-visaged mechanic grinned. “Not me, boss. 
What’s the bird giving you anyway? Seems to think 
we’re a pack of liars and crooks, just as his friend the 
Lootenant did.” 

“Which you certainly are,” said Scotty to himself. 
Aloud he retorted coldly: “And you’ve decided to give 
up the idea of the flight across the Pole? You seem a 
good ways off your course.” 

Welchor lit a cigarette and shrugged condescendingly. 
“Njot at all, McAlford. My idea is to go on to the land 
which you must realize we have sighted as well as you. 
It is only a short hop from here. We shall take posses¬ 
sion of it and plant our flag 

“What flag?” broke in McAlford, remembering Ep- 

pley’s story. 

But the other was not to be taken off his guard. “Our 
t3i 




ZR WINS! 


own flag, of course!” he snapped. “Which did you 
suppose?” 

“Scandihoovian?” inquired Scammell with a sardonic 
grimace of his ugly mouth. 

Welchor glanced towards the tent. “Your friend 
Eppley asleep?” he asked. 

Scotty’s eyes did not flicker. “Yes,” he lied promptly 
and heartily. “The poor devil tumbled off a berg this 
afternoon and sprained his ankle. Nasty twist. The 
pain of it pretty well did him up. Now he’s just dropped 
off.” 

A shade of relief crossed the other’s face. “Too bad, 
too bad,” he murmured. “You men have made a good 
try too. Another day and you would have reached the 
new land first. . . . Oh, well, exploration has always been 
a gamble.” 

To Scotty’s dismay Scammell started towards the tent. 
His first thought was to head him off with threat of 
physical violence. But that would only have betrayed 
the absence of Eppley at once. Further, the two of them, 
he could see, were armed. Once they realized that they 
had been tricked there would be no delay about their de¬ 
parture. To play for time was his only hope. 

“By the way,” he said quickly, “did you know that your 
radiator was leaking when you came down?” 

Scammell stopped in his tracks. Probably some vision 
of the damage he had already arranged for the Belgian 
plane entered his mind. 

Examination of the radiator occupied at least five min¬ 
utes. Fortunately for Me Alford’s ruse it actually did 
need some water, though not enough to require refilling. 

At this point another scheme presented itself. Why 
not disable the plane ? The emergency food and traveling 
equipment the two men carried were inadequate for a 
long trip across the ice. They would be in the same posi- 
132 



THE LAST DASH 


tion that he and Bliss were. And now that the ZR-5 
was out of the race completely they could not fall back 
upon her. One escape would be left them: to reach the 
north coast of Canada before the open water of summer 
came, if it had not come already. 

The objection to such a move lay in the fact that Bliss 
was ahead alone and with practically nothing in the way 
of food or means to subsist himself. There would be 
no sense in defeating Welchor and Scammell if Bliss 
were also put in a position from which he could not es¬ 
cape alive even if he did reach a new land. 

Solution of the situation came from a wholly unex¬ 
pected source. Out of a cloudless sky snow began to 
fall. Large slow-falling flakes that turned Welchor and 
Scammell upon one another with looks of anxious in¬ 
quiry. 

“Snow!” ejaculated the former. 

Scammell drew on his mittens with a jerk. “Means 
we’ve got to shoot for it, boss! I’m not going to take a 
chance on landing on shore ice in thick weather.” 

Welchor glanced apprehensively eastward. The land 
still stood out clear and beckoning through the thin mist. 

“I should say not! Come on, get aboard.” 

Scammell had one foot on the wing step to mount when 
the thought occurred to him, “Got to have one last look 
at that mutt who punched my eye. Maybe he’ll apolo¬ 
gize,” he muttered. 

“Better not waste time,” warned Welchor. But Scam¬ 
mell was already trotting across to the little tent. Scotty 
braced himself for the shock. 

“He’s not here!” yelled the man a moment later, and 
came running. “The dirty liars! I knew they’d pull 
something like this! Knock his block off, boss ! He de¬ 
serves it!” 

Welchor clambered out, his face purple with rage. 

133 



ZR WINS! 


“Is that true?” he snarled. 

“Go to hell,” grinned Scotty. 

“You liar!” hissed the other. 

With a gesture of finality Scotty hurled his cigar stump 
into the snow. “Take that back,” he said slowly. “Or, 
by God, I’ll—” 

“You will?” retorted the other, drawing a pistol from 
the pocket of his leather jacket. “No. ... I guess you 
won’t. Now turn around before I plug you the way you 
deserve to be plugged. American sportsmen!” The 
words were drawled with contempt. “Biggest bunch of 
liars I ever had the pleasure to deal with! Eh, Scam?” 

“Don’t see why you don’t fix him here and now!” 
snapped the other hotly. 

Welchor paid no heed. “We may see your friend, 
Eppley,” he went on. “If we do we’ll settle several little 
business deals with him at one sitting. If we don’t— 
just tell him that the reason I waited over a day before 
leaving Point Barrow was to meet Miss Beckett. Tell 
him she’ll be glad to hear I’ve reached the new land first 
because she expects to marry me when I get back.” 

A moment later with a roar the plane slid eastward on 
the crystal floe, sprang lightly to wing, and disappeared 
in the thickening snowfall. 

Stupidly McAlford stood staring after her. Not until 
he shivered with the cold did he regain his senses enough 
to haul out a fresh cigar and light it with slow and stupid 
movements. 

“Pleasant acquaintances to have,” he said solemnly 
after his third puff. Then he turned and entered the 
jtopsy-turvy tent where Scammell had searched with such 
brief violence for the missing Eppley. 

“Poor devil!” he groaned. “Heaven help him if they 
lay hands on him 1” 


134 



CHAPTER XVI 
FOOTPRINTS! 


M EANWHILE Bliss Eppley fought his hard way 
onward. Pain of his aching muscles was numbed 
by the intensity of his determination to reach the 
land before Thorne Welchor. So close now was the 
race that if McAlford failed to detail the fliers, as Bliss 
had instructed him to do, only the intervention of Provi¬ 
dence could prevent utter failure. The grim thought 
spurred him on. 

Gradually the shore ice became visible. Rough high 
ridges skirted the foot of the cliff. With throbbing feet 
he threaded his way slowly around and over the icy ob¬ 
stacles in his path. 

Northward rolled the run and still no plane. The 
softening evening glow illuminated the towering ramparts 
ahead. So lofty were the precipitous heights that on 
close approach they hid the smoking peak behind them. 

Again and again Bliss looked back. If not the plane, 
why not the ZR-5? She should have been got running 
at least by now. In a few hours she could cover what 
it had taken the marchers two long days to do. 

“Maybe the Skipper nabbed Welchor while he had the 
chance!” 

The thought cheered him on. The welcoming land 
ahead was clear in all its details. Low round hills above 
the southern peak, and the inland ranges tipped with pink 
as the sun slid lower in the north. A new land indeed. 
Not like the dull unbroken barrens of North America 
135 


ZR WINS! 


either, Bliss realized with a thrill. But subtly different. 
More fiercely lined, perhaps. More mysterious in its out¬ 
ward ruggedness. More grim and forbidding in its 
hidden vastness beyond the towering mountains. What 
secrets did it hide? What new riches? What new race 
of men or monsters roamed the snowy wilderness within 
its frozen boundaries? 

A lead of open water stopped the plodding man. But 
a detour brought him to a bridge. Anxiety swept him. 
Would the ice run clear to land? Must he fail with the 
goal in sight? 

A hush deeper than the former silence fell about him. 
His seaman’s sense of weather told him the wind was 
shifting. It had been but a breath. What was coming 
now? He turned apprehensively. A damp morsel of 
snow touched his cheek. Then another. Yet the sky 
was clear save for a slight haze. Then gently as the fall 
of autumn leaves great gliding snowflakes slid noise¬ 
lessly out of the air. Slowly the land ahead faded. He 
caught through the thickening curtain a last looming 
shadow of the black cliff for whose northern end he 
headed. Quickly he took a bearing. 

Then out of space sifted a distant sound. A familiar 
hum. A note that brought the plodder’s heart into his 
mouth. Made him grit the words that escaped his blis¬ 
tered lips: 

“The plane! God give me strength!” 

His first move was to spring to cover behind a tilted 
pinnacle of ice. Shore of the new land was still nearly 
a quarter of a mile away. If the plane were going on to 
it the race was lost. But if Welchor should choose a 
more prudent course in the sifting snow, and utilize one 
of the smooth though narrow lanes between the pressure 
ridges for a runway, there was still a chance. 

The buzzing motor passed overhead, invisible in the 
136 



FOOTPRINTS! 


gray murk. Bliss’ heart sank. Most likely Welchor 
would crash in making land. But that was trifling as 
compared with his reaching there first. 

But just as the sound overhead was diminishing in 
the direction of the shore it suddenly became a crescendo 
again. 

“He’s going to use the ice!” cried Bliss, and hugged 
himself in an ecstasy of delight. 

Suddenly the motor shut off. Down out of the skur- 
rying flakes sailed the large dark shadow of the plane. 
With a little pang of admiration for the pilot’s nerve 
the crouching watcher realized that nothing short of a 
miracle could prevent disaster. Yet just that miracle 
happened. For on the edge of visibility to the southward 
the plane came to a stop and two bundled figures clam¬ 
bered out. 

Instantly Bliss was off. Like an Indian he dodged 
from cover to cover. Time and again he stumbled. 
Twice his face was badly cut by collision with knifelike 
edges of the floe. Once he ripped the knee of his breeches 
and left a crimson smear on the snow when he staggered 
half stunned to his feet. But he kept on at a pace un¬ 
slackened by his suffering. 

In his physical exhaustion tears streamed down his 
cheeks. Both hands and feet were bruised and numb. 
The last fifty yards he crawled on hands and knees. 

As half fainting he crept up over the last tide-crack’s 
crevice he heard voices behind him, angry voices. His 
trail had been discovered. But he had won. 

Just a boulder, a cold brown knob projecting through 
the snow, was all that showed: but Bliss Eppley lay upon 
it sobbing, his lips pressed to its ice-scoured surface. For 
he had reached the new land first; and this boulder was 
part of it. Fumbling in his pocket he drew forth the 
tiny silk flag soggy with his sweat. He spread it on the 
137 



ZR WINS! 


boulder where in the cold it soon stiffened as if with 
pride at its owner’s heroic achievement. 

When the two pursuers came Bliss drew upon that 
decimal of his remaining strength and rose unsteadily. 

Scammell reached him first, and made as if to strike 
the helpless victor. But Welchor, more controlled, el¬ 
bowed his man away. Whereupon the former snarled; 

“You fool! You would go back and mess with those 
liars!” 

The next instant Scammell sprawled upon his back from 
Welchor’s blow. 

“That’s the trouble with you, Scammell! You lose 
your head!” snapped the latter, still panting from his 
climb over the rough ice. He turned to Eppley. ‘ So 
you think you’ve beat us, do you?” he sneered. 

Bliss grinned crookedly. “I don’t think it, I know it.” 

“Oh, you do, do you? Well, does it occur to you that 
instead of winning you’ve only cooked your goose for 
good?” 

Eppley’s jaw squared definitely despite his battered 
cheek. He shook his head. 

“Very well, then, permit me to tell you that your friend 
McAlford has started back. I promised him I would 
pick you up.” Welchor chuckled cruelly. “Which, my 
lad, I am certainly not going to do.” 

“I should hope not,” ventured Scammell from a safe 
distance. 

“There was an explosion on the dirigible. Her crew 
have already set off for land. Food was left at the 
wreckage for you and your friend.” 

For the matter of a second or so Bliss’s heart stood 
still at hearing this fearful tragedy. Then, with the 
impact of reason upon the knave’s words, he saw the 
falseness of them. 

Welchor’s coarse lip curled. “And you’re going to 
133 




FOOTPRINTS! 


stay right here where you’ve got yourself to and freeze 
to death. I don’t have to raise my hand against you. 
The way I figure it is that you’re being punished for in¬ 
terfering with my plans. How about it, Scam?” 

“Absolutely. If he’d left us alone—” 

“Go to hell!” broke in Bliss weakly and sat down. 

Welchor shook his head in mock commiseration. “Too 
late for any more of your dramatics, my friend. Now 
just sit there and think it over. Come on, Scam.” 

“Absolutely. Even if he doesn’t freeze he hasn’t any 
witnesses to prove he got here first, has he?” 

“None at all,” growled the other. 

When the pair had disappeared in the direction of the 
plane Bliss continued to sit. As Welchor had pointed out 
his case was practically hopeless. Even if he were rescued 
he could not well prove he had first reached the new land 
and so claim it for his country. 

The snow continued. And while the cold was not in¬ 
tense the strain of his recent physical effort combined 
with the damage to his footgear and clothing caused him 
to shiver pitiably. No food nor fuel, no camp gear, not 
even a spare mitten to replace the one that hung in shreds 
from his right wrist: his circumstances could not have 
been more terrible. 

But apprehension for his own personal safety was 
dwarfed by the sense of abysmal failure that oppressed 
him. Welchor would now, no doubt, go back to Point 
Barrow as quickly as possible and inform the world of 
his discovery. The momentum of his claim would gain 
tremendously by its priority without regard for any proof 
that might subsequently be demanded. Indeed, as far 
as proof was concerned, Bliss well saw the hopelessness 
of trying to establish his own claim. His and Scotty’s 
very lack of equipment and means of travel that Captain 
Devon would have to bear witness to would detract from 
139 



ZR WINS! 


the possibility of his ever being believed. Further, Wel- 
chor could always bring out the fact that Bliss himself 
was a party to duplicity and intrigue. 

He tried to comfort himself with the thought that 
Me Alford would join him as soon as the weather cleared. 
He pictured the ZR-5 arriving despite her injuries and 
the explosion that Welchor had pretended had taken 
place. But no amount of such thinking could keep back 
the prying fingers of the cold. 

Again he struggled to his feet and swung his numbing 
arms. There was no feeling in his toes. His fingers 
burned as if they had been scorched by fire. 

A low thudding came through the scurring fog of 
snow. Welchor was starting up his motor. He must be 
in a hurry to take such risk as going aloft in these condi¬ 
tions. And he would be in a hurry only if the dirigible 
were still in the race. A hurry to get back to Alaska and 
report his lying tale of having discovered the new conti¬ 
nent. 

At this moment with a twinge of fear Bliss suddenly 
became aware of the fact that his thoughts were drifting 
along without concern for his plight. His bodily dis¬ 
comfort was decreasing. All of which could mean but 
one thing: the numbing effect of cold and exhaustion 
was getting in its deadly work. 

At once he took an experimental step forward. 
“Ouch!” he cried involuntarily as pains shot through his 
legs and back. 

Thus had his anxiety been well founded. For, para¬ 
doxical as it may seem, there is no gentler death than 
that by freezing. Had he settled upon the rock he’d 
hugged so short a while before he might have gone happily 
to sleep forever, thinking reasonable thoughts and thor¬ 
oughly contented with his lot. Such has been the experi- 
140 



FOOTPRINTS! 


ence of those few who have been lucky enough to have 
been rescued just before the sleep of death began. 

He tried to walk, but with poor success. He tried to 
beat warmth again into his freezing hands. Snow drift¬ 
ing into the knee of his breeches melted and ran in a 
frigid stream down one leg. 

“Scotty can’t possibly be here until this snow stops,” 
he muttered through clenched teeth. “I’ve got to stay 
alive till then. If I die no one can stand in the way of 
that scoundrel’s story. I’ve got to stay alive!” 

Then his heart sprang into his throat. . . . 

At his feet on the alabaster snow, the virgin white 
mantle of the lands, spread a crimson stain. He stooped, 
touched the stain with trembling fingers. It was blood. 

Nor was that all. He glanced beyond the blood. Ves¬ 
tigial hairs in the furrow of his spine stood erect. . . . 
Footprints everywhere! Tramping the snow down. 
Footprints of a score of human beings—two-score— 
loitering about! Some large, some small. All distinct 
from either of the white men’s narrow marks. Breath¬ 
ing heavily, aghast, unutterably dismayed, he looked in 
a vague dumbfounded way about him. Snow-filled 
beach, high cliffs, gray sky, mocked his fevered eye. 

Footprints everywhere! 

Swaying as if in the gentle wind that blew he stood 
and looked. In a stupid sort of way he shook his head. 
A half-smile twisted his expressionless mouth. Slowly 
he sank to his knees, tottered for a moment, then stretched 
face downward in the snow. 

Voices roused him. As if from a great distance he 
strained to recognize them. Perhaps the ZR-5, perhaps 
Welchor, had come. But on opening his eyes his blurred 
vision told him these many figures were strangers. . . . 

Gently he felt himself lifted. Whereupon again he 
sank into oblivion. 

141 



CHAPTER XVII 
THE LOST TRIBE 


T HE village lay in a shelflike hollow halfway up 
the southern slope of the volcano. It consisted 
of two-score small white houses of stone arranged 
nearly in a semicircle about a central park or common. 
A luxuriant growth of coarse shrubbery filled the spaces 
between the houses and was cultivated in curving geo¬ 
metrical figures around the border of the park. The 
deep luxurious green of this vegetation brought out in 
vivid contrast the rich red of the towering cliff against 
which the little settlement nestled. 

Southward the mountainside sloped declivitously to the 
white ice pack far below, which spread in a great glim¬ 
mering sheet towards North America, half a thousand 
miles over the horizon. Above the red cliff this same 
slope continued to the summit where the volcano’s crater 
smoked blackly into the blue vault of the cloudless sky. 

The scene was one of life and gayety. Children of all 
ages ran and sang and danced about. Their laughter 
was echoed by the myriad birds that swarmed the cliff 
face above them. Strolling to and fro were tall fair¬ 
haired women mostly young, blue eyed and rosy cheeked. 
All wore simple smocklike garments of a soft brown 
wool. Great shaggy dogs, larger than St. Bernards and 
far keener in expression, lolled sleepily here and there, 
or wandered out into the snow patches beyond the vil¬ 
lage limits where they might cool their hot bodies. From 
somewhere came the music of a harp blending with sev- 
142 


THE LOST TRIBE 


eral splashing waterfalls which fell in silver strands from 
snow fields higher up. Peace and tranquillity reigned. 
Happiness was personified in the scene. Contentment 
showed in the serene expressions of the women. Joy of 
living was the keynote of the peals of merry laughter 
that rose and fell from out the kaleidoscopic groups of 
boys and girls. 

Exactly opposite the center of the semicircle of low 
habitations was a gaping hole in the cliff. From the 
shadowy depths of this cavern issued strange muffled 
sounds as if a great factory existed therein. A hum¬ 
ming noise was chief among these sounds. One would 
say on hearing it that machinery of some sort turning 
rapidly could only account for its origin. 

Abruptly the noises, except the humming, ceased. As 
if by signal the women and children came to sudden halts 
in their movements. All stood and gazed in tense an¬ 
ticipation at the aperture whence the mysterious sounds 
had come. A hush fell upon the village. Even the dogs 
and the birds seemed to partake in this strange silence. 
Then from out the shadows of the cavern appeared a 
group of slow-moving white figures. 

The hush deepened. The girls and women craned 
their necks. Children worming their way between the 
legs of their elders stared curiously towards the cave. 

When the figures came into daylight it was clear that 
they were men. Like the women they, too, were very tall. 
They had long blond hair and yellow beards that in some 
cases stretched to the belts that held their short shirt¬ 
like garments to their bodies. 

Bliss, peering down upon the strange scene, gasped. 
The spectacle upon which he gazed was so astonishing, 
$o far beyond anything his imagination had been able 
to see in advance, that he pinched himself twice till he 
;winced before he was at all sure that he was not dreaming 

143 



ZR WINS! 


and would soon wake up again to the horror of the lonely 
pack and bitter cold. . . . 

Blond Eskimos? But they couldn’t be Eskimos, these 
tall, superbly-built and handsome men and women! Then 
flashed back the tale so often he had tried to make his 
friends believe. Tale of the Norsemen on the Greenland 
coast five centuries before. Happy, thriving, prosperous 
colonists. Abandoned without warning by the mother 
country. Compelled for generations to do without the 
luxuries to which they were used. Doomed, it seemed, 
forever to the long and sunless night, the bitter cold, the 
awful lifeless North. ... A generation, two perhaps, 
of heartbreak and of longing. Unhappiness goading the 
younger men to travel northward. Perhaps a route to 
southern lands lay that way. . . . 

“And they found this!” he cried. 

He scrambled to his feet. He trembled. The wonder 
of it all struck him as might a blow. Stunned and 
speechless he stood and gazed in rapture at the lovely 
scene. Not in all the ages had men found anything like 
this! The mystery of it! The surpassing tragedy and 
drama of this epic of human castaways! His heart beat 
as if it would burst his ribs. His breath came and went 
with a ridiculous irregularity. How the papers had 
shrieked the news of Tut-ankh-amen’s tomb! A hole in 
the ground contained the shriveled mummy of one man, 
with but the ghastly relics of his death strewn in tatters 
all about him. How the world would thrill at this! Live 
men and women who had never heard of the United 
States! Six centuries of history for them did not exist 
save as their cloistered generations on this isolated conti¬ 
nent could know them! 

As in a dream he glanced at the sledge on which he 
had been lying when consciousness returned. It was 
of a pattern he had never seen. The group of silent men 
144 



THE LOST TRIBE 


in furs behind him were apparently hunters. On another 
sledge was lashed the body of a dead seal. This ex¬ 
plained the blood on the ice. 

A great shout broke the silence. A chorus of cries, 
a swelling volume of human chatterings of surprise, 
came up to meet him. Stiff from his recent labors and 
still half incredulous he descended the slope towards the 
greensward. 

An elderly man came forward. He was close to seven 
feet tall. His flowing hair and beard were white. His 
ruddy cheeks and piercing blue eyes, combined with the 
soft form-fitting shirt of brown wool that covered him 
to his knees, made him a striking figure. One could 
imagine him erect on the poop of a Viking ship, eyes 
shaded towards^new land that beckoned his kind ever on. 

He spoke a few words in a strange tongue. Bliss 
shook his head. Again the Viking spoke. This time his 
words sounded somehow as if they might be of Latin 
derivation. With a smile Bliss nodded his incompre¬ 
hension. 

Then to his astonishment there issued from the giant’s 
lips a greeting in plain English, perfectly enunciated. 

“Welcome, stranger. Do I now speak the language 
of your country?” 

For a moment the dumbfounded explorer could only 
gasp. Then, so comically that several of the women 
laughed outright, he responded: 

“Why—why it is— exactly!” 

Whereupon the speaker addressed his fellow tribesmen 
briefly before turning again to Eppley and adding kindly: 
“Forgive me, but they are consumed by curiosity to know 
from whence you come. Not all can speak your language 
yet.” 

A shout from the hill above interrupted. Glancing 
upward along the trail from which the hunters had just 
145 



ZR WINS! 


descended Bliss saw to his delight the unmistakable 
figure of Me Alford seated astride the leading sledge of 
another party. The next moment Scotty's arms were 
about him, his lusty voice bellowing in his ear: 

“Why, you old ham-bone! Thank God you’ve turned 
up at last! I thought you were done for by those mur¬ 
derers on the ice!” 

“The same with me, Scotty!” he responded thankfully. 
“Did you see where I landed? You know I beat them 
to it by the skin of my teeth.” 

“Bully for you!” roared the other, and wrung his 
friend’s hand. “I should say I did see where you landed! 
And when I also saw blood on the ice I expected to find 
your mutilated body behind the first rock!” 

“Nothing but a seal my friends killed,” laughed Ep- 
pley. “The hunting party I fell in with.” 

“But didn’t Welchor and Scammell find these people ?” 

Bliss shook his head. A mask of firmness overspread 
his countenance. 

“No; they thought they were leaving me to die. Wel¬ 
chor even laughed at me. You see the last mile or so 
was pretty awful. I was all in. I heard the plane coming. 
I was soaked with sweat. But I knew I still had a ghost 
of a chance. They overtook me just as I dragged myself 
ashore. I scarcely had the strength to stand. When the 
two scoundrels came running across they discovered me 
there and they were furious. They swore and stamped 
around. 

“Then Welchor got off a bit of the finest melodrama 
I’ve ever seen on or off the stage. He called me a lot 
of names, and pointed out that even if I thought I’d 
beat him I had another think coming. I might have got 
to land first; but it wasn’t going to do me any good 
because I’d never reach home to tell the tale!” 

“So he just decided to let you stay and freeze?” 

146 



THE LOST TRIBE 


“Exactly. Allowed as how that was a fitting end for 
a buttinski like me!” 

“Then he flew back?” 

“Yes. And since you didn’t hear him go over I sup¬ 
pose he must have made a detour to the northward in 
order not to pass near the dirigible. I was freezing. I 
knew you wouldn’t be along until next day. I was ter¬ 
ribly drowsy. I lay down against my will and drifted 
off to sleep. Later I heard dogs barking and men’s 
voices. I was too weak to rouse myself. I think they 
must have doped me. I smelled a sweetish odor. The 
next thing I knew I was lying on a sledge up here on the 
hill.” 

Bliss paused. By this time he and McAlford were sur¬ 
rounded. The towering old fellow who had courteously 
stood aside during the reunion of the two Americans now 
spoke again. 

“I am Hroar Holgrimson, Leader of the Tribe,” he 
explained with becoming dignity. “We bid you welcome. 
A house will be placed at your disposal during your stay. 
No doubt you would prefer at once to rest. Both food 
and a change of clothing will be brought at once. Is there 
anything else you would ask at this moment? 

Bliss and Scotty exchanged meaning glances. The food 
and clothes could wait. Something else could not. That 
something was their uncontrollable curiosity. 

“Tell him how we came to be here,” whispered Scotty. 
“And maybe he’ll tell us what we want to know. How 
they got here. And how in thunderation he ever learned 
to speak English.” 

Bliss nodded. To Hroar Holgrimson he said: “Thank 
you and your people very much for your cordial welcome. 
My friend wishes me to tell you that we are here more 
by accident than design, being members of an exploring 
party that is now marooned upon the ice. As you know 
147 



ZR WINS! 


our language you must have knowledge of our country. 
Would you consider it an affront if we beg for some ex¬ 
planation of your unexpected presence in a land so far 
from—from—” Bliss hesitated. “From civilization,” 
he added weakly. 

For reply Holgrimson chuckled heartily. “ ‘Civiliza¬ 
tion’ ?” he echoed. “Now that is a word about which 
we have puzzled much.” He waved his hand. “But that 
for another hour. For the moment, the chronicle of my 
people. I cannot blame you for your curiosity. That 
we are here upon this ice-beleaguered isle is one of the 
miracles in the history of mankind. Here, join me on 
yonder bench and I shall briefly relate what you would 
hear.” 

Whereupon, like two great gaping boys, the newcom¬ 
ers sat enchanted by the marvelous tale Holgrimson 
poured into their ears. 

That these people were descendants of the lost Nor¬ 
wegian colony of Greenland was quite true. But the 
facts of their emigration to this land were materially dif¬ 
ferent from what Eppley’s speculation had led him to 
believe. 

From the earliest settlement of South Greenland, so 
their records showed, the Eskimos had claimed the ex¬ 
istence of a large continent in the Polar Sea which pos¬ 
sessed a climate pleasanter than that of any other north¬ 
ern land. It abounded in game and was in many other 
ways an ideal place to live. Yet no native dared move 
to it on account of the terrifying “fire mountains” scat¬ 
tered through it. 

“You see, Scotty,” interpolated Bliss, “this place is 
really just another Iceland. Iceland has within its limits 
107 major craters and countless minor ones. Of the 
major craters practically all have been active within his¬ 
torical times. Hot springs, geysers, and wells of boiling 
148 



THE LOST TRIBE 


mud are found in every part of Iceland. Lava flows 
have frequently come suddenly from great fissures in the 
level plains.” 

Such then had apparently been the case with the tra¬ 
ditional land of the Eskimos. So despite its salubrious 
climate they were unwilling to risk living in close proxim¬ 
ity to live volcanoes. 

The Norwegians discovered its true existence early in 
their stay in Greenland. Sledging parties visited it every 
year. The great loads of skin and gold and ivory they 
brought down accounted for the extraordinary prosper¬ 
ity the records in Bergen show. The whole thing was, 
however, kept a secret in order to discourage more colo¬ 
nists coming out from Norway and spoiling their monop¬ 
oly of the rich field. 

Then suddenly and without warning the ships from 
home stopped coming. At first there was no hardship. 
Norway by this time had no real sentimental value in their 
lives. Rather was she a customer who bought the colo¬ 
nist’s goods in exchange for certain luxuries which were 
unobtainable in Greenland. 

After some years a few sturdier and more independent 
spirits decided to wait no longer for ships from Europe. 
They packed up and set out for the polar continent. 
Yearly sledgers came down to the Greenland settlements 
to see if anything had been heard from the south. 

A generation passed. The migration continued. Set¬ 
tlers in South Greenland having no market and living 
under the most rigorous conditions imaginable became 
poverty stricken and discontented. They realized that 
there was no sense in their remaining. Family by family 
they drifted north. By the year 1350 none were left. 

The new land was not disappointing. To be sure, the 
dark period in winter was longer. But then, on the other 
hand, the months of endless sunshine were more numer- 
149 



ZR WINS! 


ous. Something like two-score volcanoes were active. 
They were active in an amazing manner. They smoked 
and boiled, simmered and steamed. But they never over¬ 
flowed. The vast circular basin—probably fifty miles in 
diameter—which they encircled quivered with the sub¬ 
terranean fires beneath it. 

The colonists soon found that the fires never broke 

out. This was really evident from the very first because 
of the enormous herds of musk oxen, caribou, mam¬ 
moths, bears, and other animals that roamed about. Also 
the dense vegetation testified to a long period in which 
the volcanoes had been quiescent. 

Yet, while innocuous so far as life went, the “Moun¬ 
tains of Fire,” as the Eskimos called them, were re¬ 
sponsible for the incredible contrast between the tem¬ 
perature within the barrier and that on the polar pack 
without. Even in the long and sunless months of the 
winter the cold was never such that water froze, or plants 
died, or any discomforting chill descended upon the new 
arrivals. 

Incredible as it may seem, so wild as to tax the most 
gullible imagination, the lucky Norsemen had become the 
proprietors of nothing more nor less than a steam-heated 
polar paradise. . . . 

“Didn’t I tell you so?” cried Bliss. 



CHAPTER XVIII 
THE CATACLYSM 


“ TTVROM what they tell me,” resumed Hroar Hoi- 

Jp grimson, “this part of the island, the central de¬ 
pression or bowl, was exactly like an enormous 
room with steam pipes running under its floor. It was 
heated up day and night by irregular intrusions of 
lavalike masses that were always hot, and which ran in 
long crooked veins across the plain.” 

“But why wasn’t there the most tremendous condensa¬ 
tion between cold air from the ice without and warm air 
from within?” put in McAlford, always the engineer. 

There was, Hroar went on to explain. Indeed, this 
bank of fog eventually had a profound bearing upon the 
future of the new inhabitants for it discouraged their 
venturing again upon the outer ice. Was the gate of a 
trap, so to speak. 

“Which is getting ahead of my story,” he said. 

“For the first decade or so the Norwegians entered a 
perfect debauch of food and play. There was no reason 
to work. The game was perfectly tame. If a man’s 
family got hungry he just walked out of his tent and 
hove his lance at the nearest placidly grazing caribou. If 
the wife tired of meat there were a million eggs a few 
steps away among the rocks. If the baby was cold at 
night enough blue fox skins to cover him twice could 
be collected within an hour. ... It was a land of milk 
and honey. Yet a land to poison the human soul. For 
the human soul in the aggregate cannot stand prosperity. 
151 


ZR WINS! 


“The colony deteriorated; became flabby, discontented, 
quarrelsome, carnal, dissipated in every way. Family 
feuds broke out. Physical disintegration accentuated 
passions unbridled day by day. Where the struggle for 
existence and a wholesome business with the old country 
had held the colonies together in earlier years of their 
stay in Greenland the empty lives that all now led sapped 
the souls, the hearts, the very humanity out from the 
wretched immigrants who had settled in a paradise of 
all that man could dream of wanting. 

“Records of this period are fragmentary. The intense 
emotional state of mind all were in shut out the natural 
reflective impulses that might have led to some orderly 
chronicle of events. Instead, there survives only a series 
of terrible death compacts entered into by various groups 
bent upon the annihilation of various other groups. 

“The situation became that of Ireland of the Middle 
Ages: a number of feudal barons or kings, each a ma¬ 
rauder upon all the others. Each an arrogant malevolent 
individual who fired his retainers to hatred and to war. 

“Don’t you see the horror of it? It was not much 
different from the world to-day, if you know what I 
mean. Here was a lump, you might call it, of human 
beings inhabiting what to them was a world. This world 
was fertile, productive, potentially rich beyond all dreams 
of avarice. With proper organization of raw materials 
such as skins and wool and minerals, the Norsemen could 
have had everything they wanted. Later developments 
proved it. 

“Instead, a sort of concentrated international jealousy 
and cupidity grew up. One small group lived near the 
best grazing ground for musk oxen. Another had a 
corner, so to speak, on the fox-skin market. A third 
found fuel oil seeping from the ground right under the 
king’s castle. 


152 




THE CATACLYSM 


“In the beginning each group traded with the others. 
It wasn’t so much barter as it was handing out with happy 
generosity what the other fellow lacked. All were close 
friends, or even blood relations. Such a course was per¬ 
fectly natural. 

“Then, when the surfeit of things began to develop 
parasites among them, those who weren’t parasites grew 
to be coveters. Those who couldn’t be either began to be 
agitators. And between the three of them there was no 
peace. The pot began to boil. . . . Eventually it boiled 
over. 

“Boiling over meant that the groups which had once 
formed one large family became, one after another, es¬ 
tranged. Within the first twenty or thirty years on the 
land a violent dispute broke out between the group that 
controlled the best bird-egg cliff and one which had been 
able to segregate all the milk-giving mammals. A san¬ 
guinary battle was fought. Neither side won. But the 
damage was tremendously deeper than just the blood that 
was shed. 

“For the other groups that had been but onlookers 
became strangely hungry for more of the same sort of 
excitement. To watch a fight and yet not fight them¬ 
selves was like hearing some one give way to uncon¬ 
trollable laughter and not know the cause of his mirth. 
It gave them an uneasy feeling: they were being deprived 
of something. 

“Battles—miniature wars—became more frequent. 
Men grew skilled in murdering one another. Women 
mastered the art of nursing. Children were beginning to 
be brought up with the idea of fighting when they got 
older. 

“The record says that these children were not really 
supposed to fight. They were to be a protection in case 
of future war.” 


153 



ZR WINS! 


“It’s exactly the same as we have now!” laughed Mc- 
Alford. 

“Exactly,” admitted Bliss. “I told you this colony’s 
story was an allegory of the world’s whole history. But 
listen to what happened later.’’ 

“Things went from bad to worse,” went on Holgrim- 
son. “Always there seemed to have been a certain num¬ 
ber of level-headed men and women who pleaded for peace. 
But they were put down as fanatics. Probably were 
fanatics. At any rate their efforts always failed. TJiey 
didn’t have influence enough to gain their point on one 
hand; on the other they were able to adduce no prac¬ 
ticable solution of the problem. 

“Then, somewhere between fifty and a hundred years 
after their first settlement of the land, a war broke out 
that involved all the groups or small pseudo-nations into 
which the colony was divided. None was neutral. Every 
man, woman and child was engaged directly or indirectly 
in effecting the destruction of every man, woman and 
child on the opposing side. It was a world war in a 
sense more profound than the real world yet has seen. 
Murderous hatred animated every action. 

“Five hideous battles were fought. The mortality was 
ghastly. Blood stained the flowers of the fields. Screams 
of the dying rent the air. Black ravens swung above their 
carrion. 

“The fifth battle defied description. Nearly all the 
men were dead or wounded. The women and children 
issued forth. They were maddened, insane, maniacal. 
They were almost unarmed. They tore each others’ 
throats. They sucked the blood of their victims. They 
strangled each other’s children. They swung newborn 
babies above their heads and dashed their brains out 
154 



THE CATACLYSM 


against the rocks. ... A shambles too loathsome to 
imagine. 

“At the climax of this sickening carnage the earth began 
to tremble. Groans of agony, stertorous breathing of 
the dying suddenly became hushed. From the bowels of 
the earth there came a distant rumbling thunder. Faces 
of the few living blanched in terror. For these were a 
superstitious people. Abruptly they realized their sin. 
The God whom they had forgot was now about to pun¬ 
ish them. 

“And punish them He did. The field of battle opened 
up. From a great fissure in the earth issued a gleaming 
flow of molten rock. With slow and hissing movement 
the lava spread. A sharper hiss, a brief and suffocating 
stench, and one by one the dead and dying were cremated 
where they lay. 

“A few women, a mere handful of men, a few score 
orphaned babes and fear-stunned children escaped to the 
higher levels. Along with them ran in panic the beasts 
of the land; the placid caribou, the blustering white bears, 
the stupid musk oxen, the snorting mammoths, the play¬ 
ful foxes. 

“For several years this remnant of humanity clung 
piteously together. Shock of what they had been through 
left them stunned and dejected. There was no attempt 
to set themselves up as a colony again. They barely 
lived. Most of the adults were afflicted with some nerv¬ 
ous disorder or other. Some were paralyzed. Some 
mildly insane. All were subnormal. 

“The younger generation matured. The paralytics and 
madmen and madwomen gradually died away. But for 
years they were horrible living examples of the fright¬ 
fulness of the catastrophe that had overtaken their little 
world. 

“It was not the volcanic eruption that impressed itself 

155 



ZR WINS! 


upon them. Subterranean fires kept them warm, they 
knew. And these fires had remained under control until 
the people had so frightfully misbehaved. Hence, rea¬ 
soned the rising generation, war must forever after be 
tabooed.” 

“But did nothing remain of the livable part of the 
island?” queried Eppley. 

“That part of the story is yet to come. The first big 
eruption seems to have left the livable area of the island 
intact. The survivors from the cataclysm—the younger 
ones, that is—got together and set up a sort of demo¬ 
cratic form of government. They worked out a crude 
constitution and elected a leader every ten years with a 
committee to assist him. This scheme is still in force. 

“Of course progress was slow. Yet not slow as com¬ 
pared with our own civilization. They no longer had 
any sort of jealousy or hatred, or strife in any form, to 
disturb them. Education was developed. Natural science 
began to be studied. Physical science followed. Com¬ 
munal division of labor and responsibility were estab¬ 
lished. 

“Time came—approximately two hundred years later 
—when a definitely national policy, a sort of practical 
philosophy was recognized and voted upon. When this 
was put into force there came control of population, of 
food and of raw supplies; of pastime as well as of toil. 
In a word, a sort of discipline for mind and body and 
soul was accepted by all, exactly the way you accept cer¬ 
tain standards of morality and health in what you call 
your civilized world. 

“In about 1783, the year of the great Iceland earth¬ 
quake, by the way, another disastrous volcanic eruption 
occurred. That range of mountains you saw from the 
ice became a wall of fire. The great city which these 
people had built was wiped out. Practically all their 



THE CATACLYSM 


laboratories and records were lost. It was a far more 
terrible catastrophe than the original one. Yet their 
morale was scarcely affected. For by this time they had 
deduced the geology of their island and had realized that 
eruptive forces are natural terrestrial mechanics beyond 
the control of man.” 

“Then why didn’t they try to escape from this place 
when it blew up?” asked McAlford. 

“They did try. The last eruption left them only this 
tiny refuge where you see us now. Recognizing that 
there must be a large unexplored area—unexplored by 
them, of course, in this sea of ice—it occurred to them 
that there might be some other land equally pleasant to 
inhabit. Further, there were still in their possession frag¬ 
mentary descriptions of Norway and vague directions as 
to how to reach it. 

“You understand that up to this point there had been 
no incentive for them to leave the land. But now they 
felt cramped. And despite the traditions among them to 
the effect that Greenland was a cold and dreary country, 
they sent out several expeditions in that direction. Many 
of these never came back. Strangely enough none en¬ 
countered any of your arctic expeditions. One, however, 
but a few years ago reached the abandoned Greely head¬ 
quarters in Lady Franklin Bay. There they found and 
brought back a quantity of books, scientific instruments, 
and other symbols of your southern civilization. 

“To our horror we discovered war was a common 
thing among the nations south. The history of the de¬ 
velopment of the new world appealed particularly to us. 
Yet we shuddered at the bloodshed of your Civil War.” 

“But how could you read those books ?” cried McAlford 
incredulously. 

Holgrimson laughed. “You have yet to learn what it 
has meant to my people to work and to study undisturbed 
157 



ZR WINS! 


for over four centuries. Our system of education is one 
of our greatest sources of pride. A normal boy of twelve 
always reaches the most advanced grade. To decipher a 
new language was the work of but a few weeks for our 
linguists.” 

'‘But the pronunciation,” protested Bliss. "How on 
earth did you get that?’’ 

"One thing at a time,” said the Viking in a tone of 
amusement at his auditor’s bursting curiosity. "You shall 
know all before you leave. When you have eaten I intend 
to take you through our laboratories in the cavern. We 
have done much with electricity. Indeed, we utilize the 
natural water power here so that our working hours have 
been reduced to two per man per day. Four hours’ re¬ 
search and study per man and woman per day are required 
in addition. My people love that sort of thing.” 

"But how about—” 

Holgrimson held up both hands in a gesture of en¬ 
treaty. "Enough for the present, please, my friends. 
You have but a little time before the feast in your honor 
will be ready.” 

As the two turned to follow the guide that had been 
assigned them there broke out again from the cavern 
behind the village the unearthly humming sound so much 
like a plane at full speed. McAlford stopped dead in his 
tracks and seized his friend’s arm. 

"Bliss, do you realize that Welchor and Scammell will 
be back?” 

Eppley turned a grave face in reply. "Do I realize it?” 
he groaned. "Well, I wish I didn’t is all I can say to 
that.” He laughed uneasily. "But let’s not spoil our 
appetite, eh?” 

"Right!” responded Scotty, and elevated his nose to 
an unmistakable fragrance of cooking that drifted down 
the wind. 


158 



CHAPTER XIX 
KRISTINA 


“ AND he’s much too fat. Also he hasn’t enough 
/A hair. Is it because he eats too much? Or be- 
^ ^ cause he doesn’t work hard enough?” 

“No, Kristina, neither one,” chuckled Bliss. “The 
secret of the horror of my friend is that he smokes long 
black stinking cigars from one day’s end to the next!” 
The girl’s silvery laughter filled the little house. 
“Cigars? . . . Oh, yes, those rods of pressed and cut 
grass which you call tobacco.’’ 

The object of this little exchange of pleasantries said 
nothing. He stood as he had arrived, dirty and ragged, 
and dumb with astonishment. Only this time his sur¬ 
prise was not diffused over a vast number of curious 
details, but concentrated on the exquisite creature before 
him. 

Kristina, daughter of PIroar the Leader, had been as¬ 
signed to care for the visitors and see that they were 
supplied with clothing, food, and all the other comforts 
the settlement provided. Service being the main object 
of life in the little colony, there was no such thing as a 
servant in the sense we use the word. All were servants. 
The happiest were those to whom came the greatest num¬ 
ber of opportunities of making some one else happier or 
more comfortable. It must be added, however, in exten¬ 
uation of the reader who shudders at the idea of con¬ 
tinuous contribution to another’s contentment, that life in 
the new land was scarcely comparable to our own. So 
159 


ZR WINS! 


far had scientific development of power and its applica¬ 
tion to lightening daily burdens of the people progressed, 
that occupation was really at a premium.' Hence Kris¬ 
tina’s task of caring for Eppley and McAlford was an 
honor and a joy to her even more than to the two men. 

Like the others she bore unmistakable signs of her 
race. She was tall and slender and blue eyed. Her 
flowing hair was fair, her skin transparent. Her fea¬ 
tures were delicate. Her feet, hands, ankles, and wrists 
were so small as almost to appear fragile. Yet the grace 
and the ease with which she lifted the heavy driftwood 
table to one side of the tidy little room attested to the 
quality of the fibers that ran so supplely down her bare 
white arms. No itemized account of her beauty could 
half do justice to it. There was a composite exquisite¬ 
ness about her that could not be put into ordinary words. 
The swift sunshine of her smile, the dancing mirth be¬ 
hind her cool eyes, the instantaneous responsiveness of 
her look and speech, were sufficient to numb a stronger 
man than McAlford into speechless subservience to her 
charms. 

“Golly, Maud!” he muttered in his graceless way. “Call 
me all the names you like, my dear, if only you’ll let me 
stand and look at you!” 

Kristina turned in some surprise to Bliss. “He’s never 
seen a woman before?’’ she asked. 

“Oh, yes, plenty of them,” explained Eppley graciously. 
“But he’s just a little bit off his bean, the poor thing. 
Wait till you smell one of those cigars. He—” 

“Off his bean ? Bean —oh, yes, you eat beans!” 

“No, Kristina, not that. In our country we don’t take 
the trouble to learn all the expressive words in our lan¬ 
guage. We are lazy in that respect. So we resort to 
what we call ‘slang,’ which consists of a lot of words 
easy to remember, and which have two or three different 
160 



KRISTINA 


meanings depending on how we use them. Now Scotty’s 
head is a bean because—” 

“Aw, chuck it!” exploded the other. “She’s a nice girl 
and you are going to spoil her with a lot of stuff like that. 
. . . Come on, Kristina, and show me how I get cleaned 
up in this hotel.” 

Hesitating for a moment, undecided whether the fat 
man was actually a lunatic or not, she suddenly bared her 
small white teeth in a whimsical smile and exclaimed: 
“Oh, but you are strange people!” To McAlford she 
added: “Hurry, big man, the banquet will be ready when 
the sun is high. You must be clean. Here are your 
clothes.” She pushed a brown bag across the table. 
“Boots, shirt, everything.” 

The tiny house was built of reddish sandstone slabs 
joined together with a bright-blue mortar. Its door was 
also of stone, shaved exceedingly thin and swung on 
bronze hinges. It was divided into three rooms, all 
spotlessly clean. In fact, cleanliness and neatness were 
the most notable features of the whole settlement. The 
front room contained rough-hewn furniture of drift¬ 
wood, a table and three curiously shaped chairs, all artis¬ 
tically in keeping with the strange atmosphere of the 
place. A matting of soft, brown, plaited grass covered 
the walls. On the floor was a similar matting, shaded 
blue to match the mortar. A narrow fireplace was built 
diagonally into one corner, but there was no sign of 
andirons. On the mantelpiece over the hearth were sev¬ 
eral seabirds beautifully mounted in lifelike positions. 
Two small-paned glass windows admitted light. 

The second room was evidently a bedroom. It had no 
furniture save two low couches covered with soft furs 
faintly scented by some fragrant perfume. Beyond was 
the bathroom. With a businesslike air Kristina showed 
how the deep depression at its center could be filled with 
161 



ZR WINS! 


cold, sparkling water simply by standing upon a small 
dark stone set in the mosaic floor. She bubbled laughter 
when Me Alford got down on his hands and knees and 
tried to see whence flowed the streams that poured in 
from all sides of the tub. 

“Don’t mind him,” observed Bliss. “That’s his busi¬ 
ness at home.” 

“To take care of tubs?” asked Kristina, much inter¬ 
ested. 

“Not exactly. His body is the only tub he takes care 
of.” 

She touched a knob in the wall. “This heats the water, 
big man,” she explained. 

“The deuce it does!” sputtered Scotty enthusiastically. 

Bliss held up both hands in dismay. “Please don’t get 
him started on the mechanics of it all, Kristina. Your 
father will take him to the laboratories this afternoon. 
This bald-headed friend of mine is crazy about machinery. 
You understand the word crazy?” She nodded. 

“Then he should have none of it for a while,” she said. 
“He should sit in the sun with me and play games and 
talk and laugh. That is the way we care for such a man.” 

McAlford sprang to his feet. “Then I’m done with 
machinery forever!” he cried, and seized one of the girl’s 
white hands. “Sunshine and—” 

“No—no, not yet!” Smilingly she pushed him away. 
“I shall have to ask Eric.” 

“Eric? . . . Say, Bliss, is she married?” 

“No, but she seems to have a beau who counts for more 
than the old man. They’ve got a queer bunch of customs, 
as you will find out.” 

“Not queer,” Kristina rebuked him gently, “but they 
are ours. Have you not yours in your country?” 

The hot bath with real soap made a new man of Mc¬ 
Alford. At least that is what he announced when he 
162 



KRISTINA 


rejoined the other two in the front room. But his remark 
fell unheeded. Bliss was entertaining the young lady 
with such a stream of description of the ZR-5 that she 
had no ears to spare. 

Scotty stalked to the door, where he turned and an¬ 
nounced: “All right, you two, I’m going to tell Eric, 
whoever he is, that he’d better look out for his girl.” 

Whether the threat worked or not, he at least was 
joined promptly by Kristina and led towards the banquet 
table which had been placed in the center of the park. 
It also was fashioned from slabs of red sandstone with 
blue trimmings where mortar or matting was used in its 
finishing. It was built in a long semicircle with several 
raised benches at the apex of its curve. To these benches 
the two strangers were led and seated on either side of 
Hroar Holgrimson, the towering Viking leader. At once 
the crowd arranged itself on the remaining benches and 
fell to vigorously upon the food. 

The dishes and platters were all of polished bone or 
of glass and heaped with meat of various kinds. Any 
sort of vegetables were lacking except that boiled greens 
were dished out to the children. 

The whole meal was marked by a great deal of laughter, 
an immense amount of jesting conversation, and a spirit 
of wholesome jollity and happiness that made the calm 
air ring. 

Behind the benches wandered the huge shaggy dogs 
which apparently had been bred to their present size and 
strength from the original animals. Overhead swung 
countless bird swarms, fluttering like bits of white paper 
against the blue sky. The ice pack far below spread in a 
shimmering sheet towards North America. Music of the 
splashing waterfalls went on unbroken. Luscious scent 
of flowers and shrubs mixed its sweetness with the flavor 
of delicious viands. 

163 



ZR WINS! 


“Can you beat it?” whispered Eppley. 

“Beat it!” exclaimed his friend through a mouth half 
jammed with roast venison. “I only hope that scoundrel 
Welchor breaks his neck and never gets back again!” 

During the meal Holgrimson pointed out many inter¬ 
esting features of the settlement that were not at once 
obvious. 

“You will understand,” he said a little sadly, “that we 
have greater problems now that the difficulties of secur¬ 
ing food has increased. In the old days the colony occu¬ 
pied the center of the land, which was then a huge and 
fertile park. Our game was herded just as you herd your 
domestic cattle.” 

“We are starting that too,” put in Bliss. “The Cana¬ 
dian Government is considering a project for the develop¬ 
ment and herding of musk oxen in its northern area. The 
reason we incline more to our cows is that, as you prob¬ 
ably know, no wild animal gives a large amount of milk. 
Domestic cattle when allowed to run wild on the range 
give only from three to five pints of milk where the same 
cow would give four times that much under dairying 
conditions.” 

“Quite right, my friend,” agreed Hroar. “But we were 
able to domesticate a portion of every species of wild 
game. For instance, we, that is my forefathers before 
the last great eruption, were able to use the white bears 
as draught animals in hauling heavy loads from place to 
place.” 

From the matter of food conversation turned to the 
division of labor. Both visitors found this of particular 
interest. Hroar directed their attention to the men seated 
about the table. He described the eugenic development 
of the colony whereby it had become possible to eliminate 
all individuals susceptible to disease or physical weakness 
of any sort. 


164 



KRISTINA 


“However,” he concluded, “we cannot control the 
fibers of the brain. Such will likely always be the case. 
Some men will always live who take to manual labor 
rather than to mental exercise.” 

“But how do you preserve your equality then?” asked 
Bliss. 

“By requiring all to do a certain amount of every kind 
of work. About half of our men are essentially hunters, 
the other half keep up to a large extent in their education; 
and we never permit the brain workers to carry their 
labors to the point of degeneration of their physical 
health.” 

A youth of sixteen or so stepped up and whispered into 
the old man’s ear. When the latter nodded the boy dashed 
off. A few minutes later there rose from one end of the 
table the music of an orchestra. The melody it played 
was of haunting sadness, a curious contrast to the gayety 
about. While it continued, quiet was maintained among 
the feasters. Some wept. All sat with averted eyes and 
listened thoughtfully. Towards the end a crescendo of 
harsh notes broke with a crash into a brief dirgelike 
measure which in turn developed slowly to a refrain of 
such sweetness that Bliss turned to Hroar for explanation. 
At that moment all began suddenly to sing and their 
caroling was in keeping with the loveliness about them. 

“The story of our colony,” paraphrased Hroar. “We 
always sing it at our banquets. It recounts the tragedy 
of our early struggle, the dreadful wars, the holocaust, 
rebirth of peace, and our happiness since then.” 

Across Eppley’s mind there ran the vision of a mil¬ 
lennium in the world he knew. Would some day men and 
women of the races hating so to-day sing weepingly of 
the terrible past—the present, for himself ? It was a won¬ 
derful vision! 

The music ceased. Dessert was brought to the table. 

165 



ZR WINS! 


Before each place was served a fat omelette of auk’s eggs 
surrounded by sweet patties of sugary caribou liver. Raw 
eggs were passed out to the boys and girls to suck as if 
they had been candy. 

Now the table was cleared. Soapstone bowls contain¬ 
ing water were brought. The benches were pushed back. 
Many of the diners stretched themselves comfortably 
upon the soft turf. Curious eyes had up to this point 
been turned upon the guests. Now there seemed for the 
first time a live interest in what might be expected of the 
two strangers. Kristina, leaning over to Bliss, whis¬ 
pered : 

‘Tt is now that you must speak to us.” 

The next moment her father rose and addressed the 
gathering. . . . 

A moment of silence, then applause. Men banged on 
the table; women clapped their hands; children cried their 
welcome. 

Came a sudden commotion on the outskirts of the 
gathering. The next second Bliss felt a tug at his sleeve. 
He looked down into the frightened face of Kristina. In 
a low tone, so beseeching that it struck apprehension to 
his heart, she said: 

“Oh, do be careful what you say! It is Olaf the 
Hunter who comes!” 

The commotion grew to an uproar. Dogs began to 
bark. Men shouted for quiet. Women divided their curi¬ 
osity between the speaker and the curve of the hill beyond 
the village. 

Then Bliss saw. 

It was a column of dog teams, huge dogs driven fan- 
wise and attached to sledges piled with meat and skins. 
The drivers, gigantic in their traveling suits of fur, were 
flinging their long whips back and forth over their heads 
166 




KRISTINA 


with riflelike reports. The hunt had been tremendously 
successful. There must be a feast and rejoicing. 

Bliss looked down puzzled at the frightened girl. She 
had been joined by a rather slightly built youth with a 
dreamy expression on his face. 

“This is Eric,” she explained, “the man I love. Yon¬ 
der, leading the sledges, is Olaf who would have me for 
his wife. My father is undecided. Eric excels in the 
laboratories; Olaf in the hunting grounds. My choice is 
Eric, for the other—” She gave a little shudder. “Olaf 
is like the wolf. I do not trust him. I—” She paused, 
seemed to shrink away, clinging to the arm of the man 
she preferred. 

Bliss glanced up. He found himself staring into the 
face of a man nearly twice his size, a face almost animal 
in its coarse hard features. By its high cheek bones and 
wide slit of a mouth he guessed an admixture of Eskimo 
blood. Possibly a throwback to some half-breed of the 
original immigrants. The man stared rudely. His very 
posture with wide-braced legs and hands on hips was 
insolent. His expression was contemptuous. He in¬ 
clined his head towards Kristina, half hidden by the 
gaping in-pressed curious crowd. He growled a few 
words. 

At once Hroar the Leader replied. Then he spoke in 
English. “Our visitors have come from a far country. 
They speak the language we are all learning.” 

Olaf grunted. He shrugged his thick shoulders. Then,, 
glancing suddenly beyond Bliss to the table, he strode 
forward and seized a plate half emptied. He snatched 
the food greedily, held the plate aloft and hoarsely shouted 
for more. 

“Say, Bliss,” said McAlford in a low tone, “the rest 
of this is easy.” 

“What do you mean?” 


167 



ZR WINS! 


“Why, when our dear friend Welchor comes back, as 
he will I’m very much afraid, we’ll just tie him and yon 
brave Olaf together by their tails and let them scratch 
each other’s eyes out!” 

Bliss shook his head. The look in Kristina’s moist 
blue eyes had gone to the roots of his heart. The future 
looked very complicated. 

Hroar Holgrimson stepped up. “Now we’ll show you 
and your friend the laboratories,” he said. 

Bliss thought he could detect a note of fear in the old 
man’s voice. But he had not seen what Hroar Holgrim- 
son’s watchful eyes had caught. 

Back among the emptied tables still stood Olaf the 
Hunter. Nearly hidden behind his hulking body cow¬ 
ered a frightened girl. 

“So you would enlist these weaklings with the sad-eye 
of your choice?” growled Olaf harshly. His lips were 
smeared with caribou fat, a lump of which he rolled from 
cheek to cheek with gluttonous smackings. 

“But my father bade me see them cared for,” protested 
Kristina tearfully. “Please let me go.” 

“Let you go?” A brutal chuckle bubbled in the big 
man’s corded throat. “Yes, to-day. Perhaps to-morrow 
also. But soon, my pretty birdling, the day shall come 
for us to leave forever. You and me. Ah-ha!” 

Kristina caught her breath and shuddered; then sped 
towards her father who towered grimly across the way, 
arms folded, and alone. 



CHAPTER XX 
INTO THE CAVERN 


HE entrance into the volcano behind the village was 



simply a square black opening about twenty feet 


A high and correspondingly wide. Inside, its con¬ 
figuration was less regular, as if the original cavern had 
been a natural recess in the rock. As the two thrilled 
visitors later learned, this was actually the case. 

As the daylight faded out behind them a soft phos¬ 
phorescent glow took its place. The origin of this curious 
illumination was not clear. At Bliss’ inquiry the elderly 
guide pointed out innumerable small cuplike depressions 
along the rocky walls, in each of which glowed a shaded 
torch emitting a bluish light. 

‘‘Electric lights,” he explained. “But as far as I can 
gather, not the kind your nations have developed in the 
south.” 

Continuing down the long passage he went on to say 
that the colony had discovered electricity at least three 
centuries before, a full two hundred years prior to any 
accurate conception of it in Europe. 

The old Viking smiled. “In this alone,” said he, “you 
will perceive the striking result of isolation upon our 
scientific progress. We have been able to create a con¬ 
tainer so small that you can hold it in your hand; yet so 
powerful electrically that it will illuminate a house for 
a lifetime. One of these cells may be charged in a 
day at the source of power. It may be discharged in 
the fraction of a second with enormous violence; or it 


169 


ZR WINS! 


may ooze current over a period of many years. But 
if released at one sudden shock it would burst as if it 
were an explosive.” 

He stepped aside into a storeroom. Switching on the 
same blue glow that filled the corridor without he pointed 
to a mass of small black boxes about a foot square piled 
high to the ceiling. There must have been several hun¬ 
dred of them. 

“These are empty cells. We charge a great many dur¬ 
ing the summer in order that when the winter darkness 
comes we need not worry for light and heat. Moreover, 
their contained power provides a means to do any extra 
work that becomes necessary.” 

McAlford examined one of the cells with wondering 
eyes. 

The party had now come to a fork in the passageway. 
Two branches ran out to right and to left, disappearing 
in long curves that seemed to agree with the outer surface 
of the mountain. 

“You must understand that we did not build these 
caves,” said Hroar. “They are simply spaces between 
the original layers of lava. Which reminds me: Do you 
hear that humming sound?” 

Both nodded. 

“One of the first things I noticed when I entered the 
settlement,” observed Scotty. “I took it to be some sort 
of machinery that you have installed here.” 

Hroar Holgrimson shook his head. “No, that hum¬ 
ming noise you hear is simply the magnified vibrations 
of the earth’s interior.” 

“The what?” ejaculated Bliss. 

Holgrimson smiled. “It is difficult to explain it when 
I am not familiar with your technical terms. But I know 
that recently you had what you call an earthquake in one 
of your countries.” 

170 



INTO THE CAVERN 


“Japan?” suggested McAlford. 

“I think that was the place I mean. Anyway, living 
in an intensely volcanic country we have naturally taken 
much interest in the local manifestations of subterranean 
fires. In fact, we have learned by terrible experience that 
our very lives may depend upon knowing in advance when 
there is going to be an outbreak. 

“Early in the development of our cells we discovered 
to our amazement that when one of them was super¬ 
charged to a certain pressure of electricity it gave off a 
peculiar humming note. At first we thought this was 
due to a sort of boiling effect on the contained charge. 
Then we found to our surprise that the note varied in 
pitch in proportion to the cell’s distance from the vol¬ 
cano. One morning the whole settlement was aroused by 
a perfect bedlam of sound issuing from the storeroom in 
which we kept about a hundred of these very highly 
charged units. Within twenty-four hours the volcano 
was in eruption. Nothing serious; but violent enough to 
force abandonment of our laboratories. 

“Subsequent study of the phenomenon showed that 
during volcanic activity the tonal qualities of the earth s 
crust became for a time immediately prior to the quake, 
and for a considerable period afterwards, profoundly dis¬ 
turbed. Then it is we have no longer the clear musical 
sound you noticed, but in its place a loud and raucous 
roar that makes a splendid warning for all people that 
might be in harm’s way.” 

Silently Bliss and Scotty glanced at one another. The 
latter had been in command of a destroyer at Shanghai 
when the cry for help had come with such piteous feeble¬ 
ness from the shattered station just south of Yokohama. 
Bliss had witnessed at Messina the horror of one hundred 
thousand men, women, and children crushed or cremated 
without warning. 

171 



ZR WINS! 


Holgrimson, seeming to read their thoughts, said: “It 
would mean real safety to thickly populated volcanic dis¬ 
tricts such as you have.” After a moment he added with 
just a touch of irony: “But why save people just to be 
murdered in the wars you seem to love so much?” 

For which there seemed no ready answer. 

Now as their guide led on his step quickened. He 
nodded toward a door from which streamed a band of 
light brighter than any which they had yet encountered. 
The large room they soon found themselves in was ar¬ 
ranged as an amphitheater. Curving rows of seats carved 
out of the solid rock ran up and back for at least two 
hundred feet. The whole colony could have been seated 
before the little square of brilliantly illuminated space on 
which the visitors stood. 

At their entry Eric drew Hroar Holgrimson aside for 
a moment and whispered with unmistakable signs of 
agitation into his ear. Presently he came forward and 
held out his hand. 

“I am saying to him that we should ask your pardon,” 
he began in perfect English and with scarcely a trace of 
the strange accent the other had. “Olaf the Hunter was 
very rude to you when he arrived to-day.” 

“Oh, that was all right,” smiled Bliss. But the other 
stopped him. 

“No, my friend, it is not all right. We do not permit 
ourselves to be discourteous in the colony. I am afraid 
that Olaf s feelings got the better of him. You see, we 
are able to receive all messages that your southern coun¬ 
tries spread through the air. We cannot send ourselves. 
But we understood thoroughly what you call radio emana¬ 
tions many years before you used them to transmit mes¬ 
sages without wires.” 

“Then you must have known that we were sending air¬ 
ships out across the Pole!” broke in McAlford. 

172 



INTO THE CAVERN 


“We did. We have been prepared for several years to 
welcome one of your flying machines on the island. This 
spring so much has been broadcasted about the various 
attempts to fly from the land you call Alaska that we felt 
practically sure we should be discovered. Three days ago 
we learned that a start had been made. Olaf the Hunter 
and his friends were very excited. They harnessed up 
their dogs and rushed down to the ice. They brought you 
back . . . ‘Eppley/ you say your name is? Bliss 
nodded. “You were very tired and dirty. Your face 
was burned dark by the sun and the wind. All the village 
had gathered to meet you. When they saw what Olaf 
had brought back they were much amused. They laughed 
loudly. They pointed out that all he had found was a 
wandering Skrelling. Eskimo, I think you call them. A 
tribe our forefathers held in great contempt. Olaf was 
very angry.” 

He broke off. Suddenly from one of the hanging 
cells issued a familiar crackling and buzzing. Followed 
some sort of announcement in hoarse unintelligible words. 
Then rose a crashing of drums and cymbals accompanied 
by a seething unmelodious roar of wind instruments. 

Scotty’s face became transfigured. His eyes widened 
and shone like stars. His hands clasped into vehement 
fists. He began to beat upon the stone flagging with his 
feet. Then, unable longer to control his emotions under 
the mesmeric effect of the blaring chorus hurtling from 
the little black receiver he threw his bald head back and 

burst: „ 

. Ain't got no bananas to-day! 

Dead silence followed. The music abruptly ceased. 
Me Alford looked sheepishly up. Both Norsemen averted 
their gaze. Bliss felt thoroughly mortified and at the 
same time piqued at the behavior of the colonists. To be 
sure, Scotty’s outburst was hardly dignified. But, on the 
173 



ZR WINS! 


other hand, there was nothing insulting or particularly 
dreadful about it. 

Shaggy gigantic old Hroar broke the silence with a 
sigh that seemed to come from the very depths of his soul. 

“There is the Devil in that music,” he said slowly. 

“But,” protested Eppley, “it is not fair to judge us by 
a bit of song. We have art and religion and good govern¬ 
ment, and a thousand other things of which you know 
nothing.” 

Before Holgrimson could reply there echoed down the 
outside corridor the shuffling of many skin-clad feet. 
Boys and girls, young men and young women, began to 
straggle in. Chattering and laughing they filled the lower 
tiers of seats and waited. Some shouted inquiringly at 
Eric. He glanced at the older man, who nodded assent. 
Whereupon the former walked to the central sphere of 
glass and moved a controlling lever beneath it. 

Once more music sprayed from one of the side re¬ 
ceivers. 

With an almost guilty start Bliss recognized the melody 
of another one of the latest syncopations that had swept 
his country with its merry measures. Scotty again was 
thrilled. Eric and the white-bearded patriarch stood aloof 
with bowed heads. 

The audience, led by Olaf the Hunter who sat in the 
front row, fairly shrieked their appreciation of the gallop¬ 
ing air. Many tried to sing the chorus. All laughed and 
chatted in an ecstasy of antiphonal delight. Youths rose 
and pranced as if inebriated. Blue-eyed maidens swayed 
languorously in their seats. Boys and girls giggled as 
though tickled in every rib at once. 

The last note died away. Whereupon a vast sniffling 
and sighing pervaded the tear-stained, mirth-exhausted 
audience. Only the mighty Olaf seemed to have survived 
the ordeal with anything like his original vigor. He stood 
174 



INTO THE CAVERN 


up. Briefly he spoke. His words were as strokes upon 
a gong. They resounded bell-like over the heads of the 
collection of youth before him. 

“He reminds them,” whispered Eric, “that they shall 
leave before the sun sets. This summer, that is.” 

“Leave?” asked Bliss, much puzzled. “For where?” 

“For your land. That is the meaning of it all. They 
are determined to leave the peace and quiet of the settle¬ 
ment as soon as possible and travel south to your country.” 

“But what the devil do they want to do that for?” 
exclaimed Scotty. “They’ll have a heck of a time! They 
haven’t any money, nor any sense. They’ll get lost in the 
subways, and run over on the streets. And if they escape 
those horrors they’ll die of ptomaine poisoning at the 
first hot-dog stand they hit!” 

“It is Olaf,” continued Eric quietly. “His motive for 
going is to convert southern nations to universal peace 
and at the same time to enjoy the advantages of existence 
down there which seem so exciting as compared with our 
tranquil lives up here.” 

“Sort of bargain, I take it,” suggested Bliss. “Olaf is 
going to give us universal peace in exchange for a little 
jazz!” 

“Attaboy, Olaf!” cried Scotty. “Won’t he be poking 
his head in the buzz saw though! Bliss, for the love of 
Mike, let’s let him go ahead and do it! Nothing would 
make me happier than to see that stuck-up squarehead 
try to bum a ride off a Twenty-ninth Street taxi driver 
without having the price! Talk about babes in the 
woods!” 

But before Bliss could reply a sudden piercing screech 
broke from the receiver. Eric sprang to his control and 
in a few seconds had clear articulate language coming 
through. Immediate silence fell. Eppley and McAlford 
nearly fainted at what they heard: 

175 



ZR WINS! 


. . . And reached Point Barrow to-day accompanied 
by his mechanic, Ramon Scammell. He reports that in 
his plane he located a new land in the unexplored area 
of the Polar Sea late on the afternoon of the third. This 
land was volcanic; one large crater was smoking at the 
time of his visit. . . 

The voice trailed off. Eric worked feverishly to re¬ 
connect. 

. . . declares that he will return at once and explore 
the new continent which is of vast size and unlike any 
northern land. Not only is there possibility of gold, oil, 
and other precious minerals, but he believes it conceivable 
that the land may be inhabited. Besides his magnificent 
discovery, the surpassing geographical achievement of 
modern times, he has won the gratitude of the American 
people by succoring the crew of the ZR-5, whom he found 
on the pack ice in a crippled condition. He reports that 
he turned back immediately after visiting the new land 
because he wished to be sure a relief party was sent at 
once along the northern coast of Canada. He also found 
two officers from the dirigible wandering about on the 
ice, but they refused his offer of help. He will return at 
once to the polar continent and continue his exploration.” 

The voice paused. 



CHAPTER XXI 
KRISTINA’S FEAR 

“ ■ ON’T you see what that radio’s bulletin over- 

I 1 looked?” asked Eppley gloomily when they 
were alone again in the little house that had 
been assigned to them. 

“Can’t say that I do,” growled Scotty through teeth set 
fiercely into a fat unlit cigar. “Looks to me as if your 
dear friend Welchor had the whole thing sewed up tighter 
than a drum.” 

“That’s just it. Not only has he been able to get the 
report through of his discovery of the new land, but he 
has put himself in exactly the position he so wished for: 
He is to all outward appearances a public benefactor, be¬ 
sides being a remarkably successful explorer. He has 
won everybody’s confidence by pretending to help the 
ZR-5; and he has put us in a bad light by letting it be 
known that we refused his offer of help on the ice.” 

“But can’t the Skipper straighten all that as soon as 
he gets in touch with the outside world? ’ 

“Scarcely. . . . Even if he does, the mischief will all 
have been accomplished by that time. You see, public 
opinion is a great deal like cement. It is soft and pliable 
up to a certain point. It can be molded and poured into 
almost any form one wishes. But let it once be allowed 
to set into some definite state of mind and it is harder 
than a rock. To redissolve and pour it again is almost 
beyond the power of man. Take the case of Peary’s dis¬ 
covery of the North Pole. Scientific authorities now 
agree that Peary got there all right and that Dr. Cook 
177 


ZR WINS! 


didn’t. But the public will always be divided on the sub¬ 
ject because in the beginning their opinion was to a large 
extent frozen into the belief that old Doc Cook was the 
winner. It is easier for people to stick to that idea than 
to change.” 

“You mean you are never going to get the credit for 
reaching this land first!” cried Scotty. 

“If I do,” assented his friend in a discouraged tone, 
“it will be almost a miracle.” 

“But it’s got to belong to the United States!” 

“That’s just the point I was trying to explain to you. 
It can’t belong to the United States unless we prove that 
we reached here first. Welchor has reported his discov¬ 
ery. He will now probably bring out some disinterested 
party from Alaska and show them the land to demon¬ 
strate that his report was absolutely true. Then he will 
turn his established claim over to his Oriental employers.” 

“Whom can he bring?” 

“Makes no difference.” Bliss suddenly paused. A ter¬ 
rible thought struck him. “You don’t suppose the dog 
would think of dragging Joan Beckett out here, do you?” 
he wailed. 

“Don’t see why not. It’s only a few hours’ flight and 
her word would be as good as any. Also it would be a 
fine way for him to revenge himself on you.” 

For a few minutes both sat in scowling silence. Finally 
McAlford lit his badly damaged cigar. “Well, we can’t 
do anything about that now. What I want to know, first 
of all, is how we are going to get out of this place. And, 
second, how we are ever going to prove that this land 
belongs to the United States.” 

Bliss rose and moved gloomily to the window. Through 
the little pane he was able to see beyond the green gardens 
of the village front. His glance swung out over the 
whitish haze of distant ice pack and seemed able to pene- 
178 



KRISTINA’S FEAR 


trate clear to the equally white building in Washington 
where his words had gone so unheeded the month before. 
He whirled upon his companion. 

“If they had only listened to me, Scotty! The com¬ 
mercial and military value of this land is priceless. 
Heaven only knows what wealth is hidden in its interior! 
From what we have seen of it no money value could 
possibly be put upon its strategical and economic control 
of the transpolar air routes of the future. Even the 
acquisition of such a remarkable colony of people as this 
will mean a lot to the power which can claim them as 
dependents.” 

“You really think it’s hopeless then?” 

Eppley clenched his hands to fists and glared at the 
fat face looking so discouragingly up into his own. 

“Hopeless, Scotty?” he said grimly. “Nothing is ever 
hopeless. I’m going to win this land for the United 
States if I die in the attempt. I have a just claim in her 
name and I am going to establish it. I shall wait here 
for a reasonable time. If the ZR-5 does not show up I 
am going to dig in until some American airship does 
show up. I’ll organize this colony in defense of the land. ’ 

“But they won’t fight. They're off war forever.” 

“I’ll make ’em fight!” 

“Suppose Welchor shows up.” 

“I’ll throw him off. This land belongs to the United 
States now. I am the official representative present. And 
I do not consider that Thorne Welchor is a fit visitor to 
admit.” 

Scotty pondered for a moment. Say, he said with 
a shade of sarcasm, “if you’re the boss in charge, where 
do I come in ?” 

Bliss chuckled. “Oh, you’ll be the Chief of Staff. 
How would that suit you?” 

“Much rather be executioner,” declared McAlford with 
179 



ZR WINS! 


a grin, “and be assigned the job of chopping that guy 
Olaf’s head off.” 

“Talking of chopping people’s heads off,” retorted the 
other savagely, “do you realize that American aviators 
have been able to fly out here for five years and not until 
this spring did any one take the trouble to make a success 
of the project?” 

Came a gentle tap at the door. “Just me with your 
suppers,” said Kristina’s voice. She entered bearing a 
sort of box. Lifting off its cover she disclosed within a 
number of portions of various kinds of dainties stowed 
in the different compartments into which the box was 
divided. A double-walled arrangement retained the heat. 

“You see we do no cooking in the houses,” she ex¬ 
plained. “We have a central sort of kitchen and take 
turns distributing meals to all the families in the village.” 

“What a corking idea!” exclaimed Bliss. “Then you 
don’t have to worry about any sort of housework at 
home ?” 

“Never,” smiled Kristina. “The houses are divided 
into groups, and for each group the women take turns 
shaking out the furs. About once every four moons one 
of us has such a spell. It is very easy, particularly be¬ 
cause none of the cooking or sewing or other living tasks 
are done in the places we call our homes. They are real 
homes, not the workshops you seem to make of them in 
your country.” 

At a shout from without the smiling expression faded 
from her sweet face. Gravely she began laying out the 
dishes of food. The shout, which both men had recog¬ 
nized as the voice of Olaf the Hunter, was repeated. 
Fearfully Kristina glanced over her shoulder. 

“I am so afraid!” she said suddenly in a low voice. 

“Of that big bully?” asked Scotty promptly. “For if 
so we’ll go out right now and fix him for you!** 

180 



KRISTINA’S FEAR 


She raised one hand in quick protest. “Oh, no, it is 
not myself I am afraid for. It is Eric. You understand 
that even the best laboratory workers are compelled by 
the laws of the village to go out on a certain number of 
hunts lest the confined work harm their health.” 

Scotty nodded. “Your dad told us something like 
that,” he admitted with a gruff ness that covered his sym¬ 
pathy. 

“Now it is Eric’s turn to go. Olaf goes too. I am 
afraid he will carry out his threats that Eric shall never 
marry me.” 

“But I thought you people didn’t kill each other up 
here?” protested Bliss with surprise. 

“We don’t. But sometimes when the men dislike one 
another they arrange it so that harm befalls the one whom 
they wish evil for.” 

“Ah-ha,” muttered Scotty cynically. “So they beat the 
Devil around the stump after all!” He shook his head. 
“Bliss,” he said aloud, “I’m afraid it’ll take more than 
five centuries to reform the human beast. What do you 
think?” 

Eppley ignored the question. “Kristina,” he said, 
“don’t you worry for a minute. My friend and I are 
going on that hunt. We want to have a look at your 
country anyway. We have a thing with us called a gun. 
It is the kind of thing we fight wars with at home. If 
Olaf the Hunter tries any funny business with your lad 
Eric we’ll let him have a taste of what real war feels 
like.” 

“Maybe then he won’t be so enthusiastic about going 
south to stop war,” chuckled Scotty. “Eh, Bliss?” 

Came a loud crash at the door. Before any had time 
to reply it was flung open and Olaf the Hunter filled its 
frame with his hulking body. To the girl he uttered 
several words in a harsh rasping voice, his loose lips 
181 



ZR WINS! 


mouthing them disgustingly. Kristina shrank back. 
Then she said under her breath: 

“He wants me to go. I am so afraid!” 

Instantly Scotty strode forward. He was half a head 
shorter than the Viking. He underweighed him by fifty 
pounds, perhaps, despite his excess fat. But there was 
an angle in the tilt of his cigar that Bliss knew at once 
meant trouble. 

“Say, you big hunk of cheese,” he said in measured 
tones, “this lady is calling on us. Get out before we 
throw you out!” 

Olaf did not move. His beady eyes protruded from 
their sockets as his anger mounted. The swollen blood 
vessels in his thick neck became great ridges under pres¬ 
sure of his emotion. 

Scotty glared back unquailing at the ugly brute. Then 
a thought struck him. With a quick movement he reached 
down and seized the rifle from where he had laid it on 
the bench. 

“You understand me,” snapped Scotty. “So don’t 
pretend you don’t. This little walking stick is what we 
call a gun at home. A gun is a thing with an arm as 
long as from here to the beach and back. You go away 
down there and stand on the ice and this gun of mine 
will reach out of this window and punch a hole in your 
ribs without half trying. Look.” 

He stepped to the window and opened it. Resting the 
black barrel on the sill he pointed it towards the cliff. 

“See that gull up there just to the left of the eastern¬ 
most fall?” 

Olaf nodded, his anger fading in his childish curiosity. 

Scotty pulled the trigger. Before the smoke had cleared 
away or the echoes of the report had come clattering 
back from the great rock wall above him the bird’s white 
body was dropping like a plummet from its perch. 

182 



KRISTINA’S FEAR 


And don’t; think I’m not watching you,” continued 
Scotty, delighted at the effectiveness of his bluff. ‘‘Just 
you try to, make trouble for this girl or for my friend 
Eric and I’ll have my gun reach out and poke a hole in 
you the same way it did that bird.” 

, For the first and last time Olaf the Hunter spoke. 

Rut my size is not that of a gull,” he announced proudly 
drawing himself up full height and extending his massive 
chest towards McAlford. 

For reply Scotty promptly shot a thick blue cloud of 
smoke through his puckered lips that caught the human 
mastodon full between the eyes. Choking and half 
blinded Olaf staggered back. A quick shove from the 
former’s toe carried him on through the door which 
slammed forcibly after him. 

“Now,” proclaimed Scotty, as he took out his cleaning 
rod and set about oiling the repeater, “the universal peace 
of his happy country is about to come to an end' Eh 
mate ?” ’ 

The acuracy of McAlford’s prophecy was confirmed, 
had he only known it, within the hour by the man whom 
he had so painstakingly insulted. For Olaf, watching his 
chance, sought Kristina alone in her home. This time 
he wasted no words on dubious threats. 

“To-morrow the hunt, Kristina,” he said. 

“Oh-h !” she replied with a little cry. “You mean_?” 

Olaf shrugged with brutal indifference. “Yes, your 
lover—sweet Eric goes with us.” 

Springing from her chair Kristina cast herself upon 
the blond giant. But her entreaty only roused his ire. 

“Do you not know that your father’s life as well lies 
in the hollow of my palm, silly girl ?” For a moment the 
touch of her body against his seemed to soften the fiber 
of his intentions. Then swiftly his mood was steeled 
again. “Perhaps Eric shall return to-morrow. I cannot 
183 



ZR WINS! 


say; for I do not yet foresee how foolish you will be. But 
I do say that if you make my planning difficult your 
father shall die as well. ,, 

‘‘Take me—take me—” sobbed the girl. “I am noth¬ 
ing!” 

“That I came to tell you, my little flutterer,” smiled 
Olaf, half appeased. “To-morrow when the sun swings 
behind yonder cliff face meet me near the hitching ring. 
Together southward shall we go.” 

For a moment with uncontrollable fierceness he drew 
the half-fainting girl up to him; then released her, so 
that she crumpled to the sandstone flagging underfoot. 
Whereupon, after a glance of caution through the window, 
Olaf turned without a word and strode heavily out the 
door. 



CHAPTER XXII 


MAMMOTHS! 


HE fashionable sportsman of the future is bound 



to seek in the Polar Sea a tonic for his jaded appe- 


tite for thrills. Nowhere else, save perhaps on the 
Antarctic plateau, is the unsetting sun so dazzling, the 
scenery so superb, the air so crisp, the environment in 
every way so stimulating. 

And how astonishingly accessible will be our northern 
resorts! A national preserve in the new Arctic Continent 
will be but twenty-four hours from Chicago or New 
York. Breakfast to-day at home on fruit and eggs from 
the farm. To-morrow be seated by the Pole, hunger 
begat of the winelike air, and gorge on broiled venison 
fresh from the arctic prairies. . . . 

“Maybe we’re wasting time,” muttered Bliss as he 
wormed his shoulders into his snug fitting, blue-fox shirt, 
a necessity in the tang of the snowy slopes just outside 
the volcano-heated village. “But who could resist it?” 

Ten sledges in all made up the party. Five huge black 
and white dogs were harnessed fanwise to each, all romp¬ 
ing about in uncontrollable joy to the despair of their 
drivers who would be forced presently to untangle the 
snarled-up traces. 

A salvo like rifle fire split the air and they were off. 

“Think of polo compared to this! Or even football!” 
sped Bliss’s thoughts as he clung till his knuckles went 
white to the swaying sledge on which he crouched. 


185 


ZR WINS! 


Over his head cracked his driver’s whip. With giddy 
speed down the sloping trail galloped the teams. It was 
more than a race. A terrifying taste of speed even to 
the two visitors, used as they were to motor cars and 
planes. For herein lay tangible proof of speed unknown 
to the aviator who seems to hang in mid-air, or to the 
motorist plunging through a fence-rimmed groove of 
road. Here the snow-lined trail was miles wide. Pow¬ 
dery white dust spurted up. Dogs yelped. Whips popped. 
Men cried their urgings to the racers. None of the peril 
of a plane; nor the nerve-tearing strain of a motor. Yet 
all the delicious heart-stopping excitement of both. 

Over the undulating plain the pace fell off a bit. In 
pure exuberance of spirits Bliss hopped off and ran. A 
loud breathing sounded in his ear. McAlford lumbered 
up and fell sprawling onto the load. 

“Say—” he panted, “where are the guns or harpoons? 
I thought this was a hunting expedition. All they have 
is a lot of line. Are they going to lasso bears?” 

“I brought the gun,” began Bliss. 

Eric trotted up. “We use the cells,” he broke in. 
“Not believing in fighting of any sort we make no kind 
of weapons except our knives.” He indicated the sledge 
ahead piled with what Bliss had thought was food. “That 
load has in it fifty cells all charged.” 

“Why, you’re a regular bunch of bomb throwers!” 
exclaimed Scotty. “May I ask how many people you 
usually electrocute on one of these expeditions?” 

“None,” laughed Eric. “We never have the slightest 
trouble with electric shocks any more. Do you in your 
country?” 

“Do we!” McAlford bared one arm to show an ugly 
scar. “That’s where I once got too familiar with a gen¬ 
erator switchboard. How in thunderation do you avoid 
such trouble?” 


186 



MAMMOTHS! 


“Very simply. I don’t suppose you noticed the soap 
you used. It has in it a solution of what you call ‘plati¬ 
num’ which is deposited in a thin film on the body. Any 
electric current coming in contact with this film finds it 
such an excellent conductor that it moves rapidly down it 
to the ground where it escapes.” 

“Heaven be praised, I took a bath this morning!” 
breathed Scotty fervently. 

But Bliss, being less of an engineer, dwelt upon the 
mention of the metal. “You mean you have sufficient 
platinum up here to put it in your soap?” he asked in¬ 
credulously. 

Eric pointed with his whipstock towards one of the 
mountains looming like a huge white-frosted cake ahead. 
“Masses of it there. Enough to last the whole world 
forever, I should judge.” 

“Do you hear that, McAlford?” said Bliss excitedly. 
“That’s the kind of thing to expect of this land. All the 
gold in Alaska can’t compare with the value of a plati¬ 
num mine such as this one Eric describes! Think what 
those villains Welchor and Scammell are trying to steal 
from us! All the burglaries since Adam put together 
wouldn’t be a drop in the bucket compared to what the 
United States will lose if we fail to establish our claim!” 

A shout rang out from the head of the column. The 
caravan swerved right. The lowest portion of the im¬ 
mense plateau had been reached. Fluffy tops of last year’s 
grass stuck up through the snow. Here and there across 
the tremendous glittering expanse were visible what 
looked like small groups of white or black ants. Around 
each group moved a darker ant. 

“Our herds of caribou and musk oxen,” explained 
Eric. “They graze back and forth over these pastures 
under the care of dogs especially trained for the duty. 
They multiply so rapidly that there is scarcely pasturage 
187 



ZR WINS! 


enough to hold them. I don’t see why you have not used 
arctic cattle long before this.” 

“But I thought we were going hunting,” put in Mc- 
Alford disappointedly. 

“We are,” replied the other. “Killing these tame 
creatures is not sport from our point of view. We al¬ 
ways take back enough to keep us in food and skins for 
the summer. Our real task is to gather meat for the 
dark months. That is the purpose of this expedition. 
The animals we are after are called ‘urks/ I don’t know 
whether you have them south or not. ‘Talimangeepe- 
turks’ is the full name. But just ‘urks’ is so much 
simpler.” 

“Sounds like a hiccough to me,” observed Scotty. 

“What are they like ?” asked Eppley. 

But before the Norseman could reply a sudden swift 
acceleration swept down the column. The drivers 
abruptly speeded up their teams. Eric sprang back to 
his sledge. Bliss had just time to tumble headlong be¬ 
side his driver who knelt and swung his long black raw- 
hide whip with vicious strokes at the galloping dogs. 

The trail led sharply right towards a shelflike rise 
which stood clear above the main level of the plateau. By 
a detour to leeward the speeding teams were brought to 
the far edge of it and halted. 

“Now go and see what an urk looks like,” suggested 
Eric. “But be careful,” he cautioned. “They’re a pretty 
rough crowd if aroused.” 

Whereupon the two explorers dismounted and crept 
towards the shelf of land upon which the objects of the 
hunt were gathered. 

At first sight both lay speechless with astonishment in 
the snow. Not fifty yards away grazed a herd of twenty 
animals, the like of which neither had ever seen before. 

“Elephants!” gasped Me Alford. 

188 



MAMMOTHS! 


But who ever saw elephants of such colossal size, with 
shaggy hair covering their massive brown bodies and 
enormously long tusks of gleaming ivory curving almost 
back upon their broad flat foreheads? 

‘‘No/’ said Eppley in a strained voice, “those must be 
mammoths —prehistoric mammoths which the world be¬ 
lieves extinct!” 

That Eppley and McAlford were justly thrilled will be 
conceded by any one familiar with the details of what 
we know already of this magnificent animal which once 
roamed all of northern Europe, and Siberia in Asia. 

“Thank goodness we’ve had the lesson of the buffalo!” 

“What have buffalo got to do with this menagerie ?” 
asked McAlford, not taking his fascinated eyes off the 
herd. “I’d say what a shame it is Mister Barnum isn t 
here to pick that old bull for his circus.” , 

“The buffalo of North America,” went on Bliss, “ex¬ 
isted by the tens of thousands before they were slaugh¬ 
tered in the early years of the last century. They were 
fine meat-and-wool-bearing animals. Now they are prac¬ 
tically extinct. These mammoths can be fostered. Eric 
tells me that delicious meat we thought was venison was 
really mammoth meat. Think of it! On every one of 
these big fellows there’s as much roast beef as eight or 
ten large steers could show. And that old cow over 
there would give thirty gallons of milk a day if she gave 
a quart!” 

Eric trotted up. “We are ready,” he announced lacon¬ 
ically. His face was somewhat pale, Bliss thought. “Olaf 
has made me Man of the Knife.” 

“How is that?” 

“Man of the Knife,” repeated the pale Norse youth. 
“It is my task to dispatch the animals that are killed.” 

“Some skulduggery, I bet,” put in McAlford. “That 
is, if Olaf decided it.” 


189 



ZR WINS! 


Which soon enough proved the truth. 

Leaving the teams in charge of one of the younger 
drivers well to leeward so that the mammoths could 
neither see nor smell them the hunters walked back over 
the trail in a wide semicircle. 

“I’m taking the gun,” muttered Scotty. “I’m not up 
on elephant hunting with bombs and I don’t feel quite 
as comfortable at the prospect as I might.” 

Each of the hunters carried four cells. They arranged 
themselves in a long line just below the slight rise mark¬ 
ing the shelf on which the mammoths grazed. Having 
got in position they knelt and waited. 

Eric, who carried no cells, or “bombs” as Scotty called 
them, then stepped forward. On his hands and knees 
he crawled almost to the crest of the rise. Bliss could 
see that his hands were trembling with excitement. Just 
before reaching a point from which the animals might 
discover him he lay down and unsheathed his long hunt¬ 
ing knife. 

“Don’t look good to me,” growled Scotty, more alarmed 
than ever. 

Scarcely were the words out of his mouth than Olaf 
standing near the center of the line raised his hand. At 
his signal the hunters cautiously advanced, bending low 
that the unsuspecting monsters ahead might not see them. 

Slowly up the rise they went. It was a strange sight. 
The fur-clad men waddling through the deep snow, each 
clutching the black cells to his breast; Eric crouched be¬ 
yond them, his knife blade glistening like a slender dia¬ 
mond in the sunshine; the shaggy mammoths snortingly 
browsing in all their terrifying monstrous size and strength 
a few rods above him over the top; and the whole aston¬ 
ishing picture backed by the range of snow-capped moun¬ 
tains rising in a towering barrier against the sapphire 
sky beyond. 


190 



MAMMOTHS! 


In line with Eric the hunters paused again. Once 
more Olaf raised his hand. Down dropped the hand. 
Instantly, with wild yells, the men sprang forward. Over 
the crest they leaped. Swiftly, almost before the dum- 
founded mammoths had time to see them, they spread 
their cells in a long row. Another chorus of bloodcurd¬ 
ling shouts and all spun about and fled for safety. 

But the shouts of the men were as the hum of so many 
bees compared with the awful roar that went up from 
the herd. Such thundering bellows as issued from the 
great gaping throats seemed beyond the power of living 
animal to make. Led by the enormous bull they charged, 
tossing their long milky tusks and thudding with earth- 
shaking strides towards the retreating hunters. Eric 
kneeling just below the crest looked like a pigmy beside 
the four-legged mountains bearing down upon him. 

The first mammoth to reach the line of cells was a 
young stripling as compared with the rest. A flash of 
reddish flame shot up and the gigantic animal with one 
last dreadful scream of pain and terror rolled headlong 
over the brink. 

“I see!” cried McAlford, jumping up and down in his 
excitement. “They’re being electrocuted!” 

Which was almost true. For as each mammoth crossed 
the line of cells the flash of flame, the piercing scream, 
the sprawling monster, were repeated. But not complete 
electrocution, as both men almost immediately realized. 
Apparently the oily hides of the mammoths insulated 
them against the full force of the electrical discharge. 
And as each thudded to the ground it lay jerking and 
groaning while Eric, “Man of the Knife,” leaped bravely 
upon the shuddering mountain of flesh and plunged his 
gleaming blade into its heart. 

It was clear now that the extreme ferocity of the 
behemoths made it necessary for the hunters to proceed 
191 



ZR WINS! 


with such caution. Also the savage swiftness of the 
charge well justified the Norsemen’s scheme to drop their 
cells in one close line and dash for shelter. None would 
have had time to draw his knife as the arms of all were 
far too full of bombs to carry any weapon in addition. 

Thus it was necessary to station one man, as Eric had 
been stationed, to dispatch the semiconscious brutes be¬ 
fore they could regain their strength. 

Already he had slain all but two. His blade dripped. 
From where Bliss stood he could see the man was bathed 
in gore. 

The old bull and one fat cow remained. Apparently age 
and weight had cut their speed. With incredible agility 
Eric finished his task before these last two monsters 
reached the line. The same flash of flame. But— 

“Did you see that!” gasped Bliss. 

The towering bull mammoth bellowing wildly stumbled 
to his knees. 

Me Alford nodded. His heart was in his mouth. 
“Why, it wasn't a full charger he cried. 

With sickening dread for the almost unarmed Eric, 
each realized Olaf’s treachery. For just then the cow 
also reached the cells, which Olaf had spread. They were 
the ones nearest where Eric had lain. The cow was 
scarcely stopped. She stumbled, trumpeted in fury, and 
turned to the nearest human upon which to vent her 
wrath. She found that human—Eric—stained crimson 
with the blood of her herd already standing knife poised 
in air face to face with the tossing twelve-foot tusks of 
the monstrous bull. 

Such a simple trick it was: Olaf the Hunter with his 
prestige had been able to detail Eric at the most danger¬ 
ous point. Olaf had further arranged that his own cells 
should not only each be charged too weakly to bring down 
a mammoth, but that they should be laid where Eric, the 

192 



MAMMOTHS! 


man he hated, was most likely to stand. And now his 
trick had met with unbelievable success. For with the 
hunters far out of danger, Eppley and McAlford near by 
gripping only their small-caliber rifle, Eric faced not one, 
but two, of the infuriated and quite unwounded mam¬ 
moths. 

Roosevelt in one of his accounts of hunting in North¬ 
ern Africa describes the plight of a gun bearer cornered 
by a wounded elephant gone mad with rage and pain. 

The wretched man, he says in part, was dazed with 
fear. His muscles failed him. Paralyzed by the spectacle 
of the onrushing monster, he stood rooted to the spot. 
One hand went out in a pitiful gesture of protest. The 
other trembled against his livid face. 

The fellow’s tribesmen paused in their headlong flight. 
A morbid fascination at the fearful sight gripped them. 
They stopped to watch the murder of a helpless man. 
Some had guns, but stupidly failed to use them. 

The flash of swinging tusks, a final trampling thud, 
a roar of triumph, and all was over. . . . 

But Eric was no gun bearer of the south. He was a 
Viking with the Viking’s traditions of courage. 

By a swift sidestep he avoided the bull. Springing for¬ 
ward he plunged his knife to its hilt into the cow. The 
cow fell. With a frantic jerk he tried to disengage the 
knife. But the bull was upon him. The cow toppled 
into the snow taking his only weapon with her. 

Olaf the Hunter must have smiled to himself. Yet 
he could not have been wholly assured. For the next 
second after Eppley realized what had happened he 
snatched the rifle from Me Alford’s hands and broke into 
a run. He knew no ordinary shot could drop the mam¬ 
moth bull. He knew even better the microscopic chance 
he had of hitting the huge animal in a vital spot. So he 
did the only thing that could give him any promise of 
193 



ZR WINS! 


succoring his friend. He ran at top speed toward the 
scene of action. He arrived almost exactly at the mo¬ 
ment that the cow rolled over with the hilt of Eric’s knife 
sticking out of her ribs. Neither man nor mammoth 
seemed to notice him. The bull lowered his enormous 
head for a final charge. His gleaming tusks dipped the 
snow. For the fraction of a second he stood thus poised. 
But that fraction was all Bliss Eppley needed. Aim 
incredibly swift, the touch of his finger on the trigger, 
and the rifle muzzle spit flame for a foot towards the 
bull. Twice more its shots rang out before the inevitable 
occurred. Then without so much as a gasp the great 
creature sank upon its knees, trembled spasmodically for 
a moment, and rolled over into the crimsoned snow, stone 
dead. 



CHAPTER XXIII 
LAKE MYSTERY 


W HILE the scowling Olaf and his friends set about 
butchering the dead mammoths Eric attended to 
his slimy clothing. He was smeared from head 
to foot with blood. Even his face presented a spectacle 
of gory horror. Fortunately the skin garments which 
he wore were impervious to the mess or he would have 
had to disrobe in the cold air and put on his spare outfit. 

At his direction both Eppley and Me Alford gathered 
tufts of grass from under the snow and helped him in 
the swabbing-off process. The latter, grunting on his 
hands and knees, suddenly gave vent to an exclamation 
of surprise. 

‘Took here, Eric,” he cried, “do mammoths have 
lubricating oil in their blood?” 

“Have what?” 

“Oil—heavy black oil? I can readily perceive why 
such walloping big creatures as they are should need 
lubrication. But somehow it doesn’t seem natural for—” 
“Oh, that—” laughed Eric, glancing down at the black 
smear which ran the full length of one of his boots. 
“That didn’t come from the urks. I must have knelt 
in it while I was waiting for them to charge. You can 
find that sort of stuff all around here. We use it in the 
laboratories.” 

He began kicking into the snow. Presently he called 
the two to come and look. There, revealed by the white 
crusts which he had put aside, was a small pool of dark 
viscous liquid. Scotty instantly dropped to his knees and 
195 


ZR WINS! 


stuck his nose almost into it. After a single sniff he 
plunged his fingers into the mess and held them up 
dripping for Bliss to see. 

“Oil!” he cried. “Real live oil! Seepage at the sur¬ 
face!” 

“That means a lot underneath, doesn’t it?” said Bliss 
excitedly. “I wonder if this isn’t the same heavy gravity 
flow they’ve recently located in Alaska?” 

“Most likely. Gosh, we’ve struck it rich all right! 
This means more than ever that our land is tremendously 
valuable. If we are fools enough to let that crook 
Welchor get away with his claim we ought to be shot!” 

“Look here,” broke in Eric, “if you two are interested 
in oil there is more of it the other side of the ridge.” 

“Interested!” shouted McAlford. “Man, the world 
we live in runs on oil these days!” 

Eric chuckled. “You live in a funny world all right. 
I suppose you haven’t found out how to use the heat of 
the center of the earth the way we do or you wouldn’t 
bother with this crude stuff.” 

“But we distill it. We heat it until the lighter oils 
like kerosene and gasoline come off in vapor which, when 
condensed, make excellent fuel.” 

The Norseman shrugged. “We did that long ago. But 
it’s such a waste of time when there are so many easier 
ways of securing power. Our cells, for instance—” 

Scotty patted the speaker on his slimy back. “That’s 
all right, old scout. Probably we’ll come to cells our¬ 
selves before many years. But by that time my friend 
and I will be in our graves. What we are interested in 
now is the present. And at present fuel-oil preserves 
are the most valuable assets a nation may have. If what 
you say is true, that there is more of this stuff nearby, 
lead us to it!” 

With something of a pitying air at their relative bar- 
196 



LAKE MYSTERY 


barism in being so interested in the worthless oil Eric 
led the way. Across the broad pasture where the mam¬ 
moths had been feeding the going was fairly good as the 
huge animals had stamped down the heavy snow. But 
when the three started up the slope beyond progress be¬ 
came a floundering struggle in the deep drifts. 

This slope culminated in a long ridge that wound in 
an irregular line north and south as far as the eye could 
reach. At scattered spots where the wind had swept 
the surface clean of snow were revealed characteristic 
rolls or billows of hardened lava. 

Glancing at the Himalayan-like chain of magnificent 
mountain peaks peeping up over the crest of the ridge 
there came to Eppley a rough idea of what might have 
occurred in earlier geological times to build such a 
formation. 

As was obvious from their shapes the mountains ahead 
were volcanic, all extinct craters. Hroar had explained 
that they encircled the original polar paradise which the 
Norsemen escaping from Greenland had inhabited prior 
to the terrible eruption of 1783. The lava flow from 
them must have been enormous. And, reconstructing 
from the old Viking’s story, the molten rock must have 
been forced out several miles from the base of the 
volcanoes. 

In other words, as Bliss deduced it, this winding lava 
ridge they were climbing must be a sort of dike running 
roughly parallel to the mountain chain itself. 

The higher he scrambled the more convinced he be¬ 
came of the correctness of his reasoning. 

“Then there must be a lake in here!” he exclaimed. 

“Why?” asked Scotty. “And where is the water to 
come from?” 

“From those peaks, of course.” He turned to Eric. 
“Isn’t there a lake behind this barrier?” he inquired. 

197 



ZR WINS! 


Eric looked slightly surprised. “Yes,” he said. “How 
did you know ?” 

“Because from these rock formations I should judge 
that there ought to be a sort of moat running around the 
base of yonder mountains. And naturally such a moat 
would be filled with water because of the—” 

The words died on his lips. For at that moment he 
reached the crest and could see beyond. 

Just as he had guessed there stretched between him 
and the white slopes a mile or so to the eastward a blue 
and glassy surface without a ripple on the mirror it pre¬ 
sented. Northwards and southwards the lovely lake 
spread and curved in one unbroken sheet around the 
circling mountain range it bordered. So deep was the 
azure blue reflected from it that Bliss glanced involun¬ 
tarily to the blue sky overhead to see if such exquisite 
color were possible in the heavens. 

From where the two explorers stood the lake shore was 
but fifty or sixty feet below them. The slope was steep; 
the lava at that point smooth and seemingly polished. 
But there were a number of inviting-looking footholds 
that seemed to beckon them onward. 

Close to the shore the blue reflection faded out and 
the lake’s flat surface darkened in token, so both men 
thought, of water of such clarity that the black bottom 
was as visible as if no substance lay between it and the 
observer’s eye. 

“Do you suppose there are fish?” suggested Bliss. 

McAlford grunted something unintelligible. The last 
thing in the world he had expected was to find himself 
face to face with a winding Alpine lake in the midst of 
this wilderness of ice and snow. 

“But the darned thing isn’t frozen!” he suddenly ejacu¬ 
lated in a strained voice. “There’s something queer about 
that lake. What do you think?” 

198 



LAKE MYSTERY 


“By gosh! That’s right! Every lake up here at this 
time of the year ought still to be frozen. How about its 
being salt water? That doesn’t freeze at so high a tem¬ 
perature as fresh water.” 

“But there would be small cakes of ice floating around 
in it left over from last winter. Remember the inlet at 
Point Barrow?” 

“Another thing,” added Bliss, more puzzled than ever, 
“do you realize that there is a nice little north breeze 
blowing, yet there’s not a single ripple?” 

“It couldn’t be molten lava or anything like that,” re¬ 
plied the equally nonplused McAlford, “or there would 
be a deal of condensation in this cold air.” 

Both turned to their friend Eric for some explanation 
of the strange phenomenon. But he had wandered away 
apparently to examine some mammoth tracks in the sparse 
grass patches that grew further along the crest of the 
ridge. 

“I’m going down there and find out what it is!” an¬ 
nounced Bliss. “I can’t stand the strain on my curiosity 
any longer.” 

“Same here!” agreed McAlford and clambered quickly 
after him. 

The descent proved more difficult than promised from 
the top. The lava face was very smooth and the angle 
at which it rested too steep for solid foothold. Only by 
stepping from one small ledge to the next were the two 
able to work their way slowly down. 

“Hey!” cried Bliss about halfway from the bottom. 
“Here’s another oil seepage!” 

For answer he heard McAlford emit a smothered 
grunt. The next instant the big man slid past him sitting 
down. 

“Guess I struck one too!” laughed Scotty from where 
he came to anchor several feet below. Then, “Gosh Al- 
199 



ZR WINS! 


mighty, damn!” he blurted. “Here’s another!’’ Where¬ 
upon he skated down another fifteen feet to within a 
short yard of the surface of the lake. 

In the course of chuckling at his friend’s misfortune 
Bliss felt himself begin to slip. 

Came a loud cry from the top of the ridge: 

“No! No! NO!” 

It was Eric. A stream of unintelligible protests came 
floating down to the two men sitting in silly helplessness 
on the shore. 

But the warning came too late. In an astonished voice 
Eppley, gazing fixedly at the black surface just beneath 
him, gasped: “ Scotty , the whole blooming lake is oil!” 

McAlford nodded. “Not only is it oil,” he said in 
hollow tones, “but we’re sitting in the streams of oil that 
feed it. This whole bank behind us is honeycombed 
with seepages. Look over your shoulder. Oil is oozing 
from every pore of the rock!’’ 

“And,” added Bliss in dismay, “we have about as 
much chance to climb back up as a couple of frogs in a 
soapy bathtub! It’s up to Eric to haul us out!” 

He turned to call. . . . But the Norseman had dis¬ 
appeared ! 



CHAPTER XXIV 
ON THE BRINK 

H ARDSHIP and danger were no new diet for Bliss 
Eppley. In the earlier days of aviation he had 
been among the first to become a pilot. He had 
flown a Curtiss seaplane with nothing but a tiny plank 
between him and the hard-boiled coastline far below. 
Twice had pilots with him been killed while he had mirac¬ 
ulously escaped. Once he had fallen a sheer two thou¬ 
sand feet in a plunging wreck of wings and struts. Only 
his grim hold had saved him at the end. The debris from 
which he was hauled testified to the horrible death that 
he had missed by a fraction of an inch. 

His present grim predicament, which contained no 
vivid tonic of plunging flight, was sodden grief by con¬ 
trast. 

Then there was his trick in submarines. Long days 
of anguish in a suffocating atmosphere, the sea’s surface 
a mad riot of wind and waves. Once for fifty-two hours 
he and a crew of twenty had lain on the bottom, fathoms 
down in a submersible, unable to rise. Death stared them 
in the face. One man’s heart failed in the torment of 
anxiety. Another’s mind broke and loosed a raving 
maniac in their midst. 

Yet submarines meant action: never dull desperation 
such as Bliss knew now, perched as he was in silly help¬ 
lessness above the lake of oil. 

During the Great War he had done duty aboard a 
vicious old destroyer that never failed to fill her trick in 
the Bay of Biscay, even while ocean liners through the 
201 


ZR WINS! 


convoys lost boats and bridge rails in the terrific storms 
that swept down from the black north waters. 

In destroyers there was always the enemy: but now 
no enemy save Death. Whimsical memory made Bliss grin. 

“Don’t see what there is in this to laugh about,” 
growled McAlford, clinging with “toes-and-teeth” to the 
slippery rock beneath him. At every breath he seemed 
to lose a bit and his huge carcass drift imperceptibly 
towards the slimy lake. 

Every soldier of fortune will agree that three situations 
equally perilous will affect a man’s morale in three ut¬ 
terly different ways. Take the heroic soldier going over 
the top or the armed hunter facing a charging lion. The 
mind of each is wholly occupied with the part he is about 
to play. The soldier slips his burdensome pack so that 
he may run; glances swiftly about for possible cover; picks 
with incredible rapidity his footsteps among the mud and 
debris. Likewise the hunter braced against the maddened 
beast grips his rifle stock, takes brief aim, and shoots for 
his very life. 

For Eppley and McAlford balanced there in awful 
silence the roar of lion or battle would have braced them 
for the test. 

Then there is the man alone in the awful dark of mid¬ 
night, crouching in terror in the corner of the musty attic 
of a haunted house. From far across the field comes the 
dismal hoot of an owl. A low bloodcurdling moan. A 
creak on the ancient stairs. . . . Stertorous breathing. 

. . . The huddled watcher is consumed by fear. He feels 
as if he must scream aloud. The clammy touch of a hand 
against his cheek and he would become upon the instant 
a raving maniac! . . . All the danger of the unknown. 

But dreadfulness like that engulfs the reason. No 
mental space is left for grieving on what might have been. 
The victim cannot look upon the sunshine, the blue sky, 
202 



ON THE BRINK 


the gorgeousness of all outdoors, and shrink from leaving 
it—the way the two explorers did. 

And finally there is the third kind of danger, the kind 
that now faced Eppley and his friend. Danger with no 
leaven of excitement. Danger that becomes fully obvious 
only with creeping slowness. Danger under circumstances 
that otherwise might be beautiful, and so the more ter¬ 
rible by contrast. 

“Scotty,” said Bliss through set teeth, “a man without 
imagination wouldn’t half mind this mess we’re in. He 
wouldn’t realize that oil with its low specific gravity will 
scarcely float the human body. Nor would he know how 
cold this danged lake is.” 

Which was cruelly true. For the freezing point of 
oil, while variable, always lies many degrees below Fahren¬ 
heit. Fresh water congeals at about 30° F. Brine, of the 
ocean’s strength, does not on the other hand solidify until 
temperature of the air falls past ten above. 

“I’m slipping!” gasped Scotty as he pawed wildly at 
the glassy surface. 

“Look!” snapped Bliss, and slammed his bare palms 
flat against a level space above him. “Take off your 
mittens. Force your hands down hard. You thus may 
exclude all air and the atmospheric pressure of fourteen 
pounds per square inch helps hold them there.” 

Both were silent for a bit. Both breathed hard with 
the exertion of keeping from sliding into the dreadful 
slime beneath them. And all the while the oozing oil 
flowed under them in a quiet stream of black venom to 
its vast reservoir, the lake. 

“Keep talking,” gritted Bliss through taut jaws. “Talk 
makes it easier. . . . Where do you suppose this oil 
could be coming from?” 

“Why doesn’t Eric bring a rope?” moaned Scotty. 

The other paid no heed. “Gas pressure behind oil 
203 



ZR WINS! 


usually causes seepage,” he observed as calmly as if they 
had been loafing on the club veranda at home. “Or seep¬ 
age may be brought about in the same way water springs 
are, by pressure of a quantity held at some higher level 
from which it leaks through crevices towards the spring.” 

To which McAlford grunted. “In either case the flow 
goes on. If Eric doesn’t come we’re goners. I can’t 
hold on much longer.” 

A shout from the ridge above made both look up. To 
their infinite relief it was Eric. He bore a large coil of 
line over one shoulder. He stooped to make it fast. For¬ 
tunately several rocky projections directly over the two 
provided an excellent anchorage. 

“Here it comes!” he shouted. 

Slowly the wriggling strand slid down. Several times 
it caught and had to be drawn up or jerked loose. As it 
neared the two Bliss spoke quickly. 

“You catch it, old man. You are having the hardest 
time to hold on because of your weight.” 

“Which is just the reason,” retorted McAlford, “that 
you ought to go up first. If my hulk carries this line away 
we’re both lost. No sense in that. You go now and 
send it back for me.” 

But, as it turned out, the dilemma required no settlement 
by the two men most concerned. For at that moment the 
sound of an angry voice drew their attention once more 
upwards. Harsh guttural words drifted down. 

They saw at once it was Olaf. He loomed against the 
blue sky like some prehistoric giant. His large block¬ 
shaped head was cocked to one side. His thick legs were 
braced wide apart in his characteristic stance. Slender 
Eric looked a sapling beside the other’s oaklike trunk. 

“God help us!” burst McAlford. “He’s got the rifle!” 

Scarcely were the words out of his mouth than the 
giant Viking raised the firearm to his shoulder. 

204 



ON THE BRINK 


“You told me to go down to the beach,” he bellowed, 
“and your Devil tube with its long arm would punch a 
hole in my ribs! Now I try him with you!” 

“Tell him for heaven’s sake not to pull the trigger!” 
gulped Scotty. “I’m afraid to yell. If I open my mouth 
any wider I’ll slip!” 

But before either of the horrified victims could shout 
a protest the Norse barbarian raised the rifle to his shoul¬ 
der, as he had seen the American do, and took careful 
aim. A flash of frightened wonder seared Eppley’s mind: 
which of them was Olaf aiming at? Which of the two 
would die ? 

A puff of yellow gas centered with bright red flame, a 
loud report, and the steel-jacketed bullet sang viciously 
over their heads and punged into the oil lake behind them. 

Eric had saved them. For at the very instant Olaf 
pulled the trigger the youth had sprung forward and 
with a blow of his forearm* had knocked the barrel into 
the air. His debt to Bliss was paid. 

Instantly burst from the giant a stream of raucous 
language in his native tongue. The pair clinging so des¬ 
perately to the oil-drenched rocks below saw to their dis¬ 
may the flash of a knife in the sun. The next moment 
the line that was to have saved them slithered down into 
the lake. They saw Olaf turn on Eric, seize him by the 
throat, and drag him out of sight. 

No sounds of the struggle came down. No outcries. 
No blows. But after what seemed an endless time came 
faintly from the distance the crack of whips, yelps of 
dogs, and voices used jerkily as if to shout orders. 

“They’re driving off,” said Bliss. 

With lips blue from cold and teeth chattering more 
from nervous strain than chill, Scotty stared upward at 
the empty skyline. “But surely they wouldn’t go off and 
leave us here!” he almost sobbed. 

205 



ZR WINS! 


‘‘They would if Olaf knocked out Eric and then went 
and told a lie to the hunters,” snapped his friend. 

McAlford groaned. With an effort Bliss smothered 
a similar sound. They were men to whom danger at last 
had come without excitement, without disguise. They 
were facing a terrible fate. Their fate was in plain sight. 
Death was but a question of minutes. Both had slipped 
within a foot of the lake of oil. Both had exhausted 
their strength not only in striving to clamber upwards, but 
to hold their own against the insidious film of greasy 
slime that continued to flow under their hands and knees 
and toes. And they were still slipping. Danger obvious 
and inescapable. Peril in the worst form peril can take. 
. . . While overhead the sky was deeply, gloriously blue, 
the snowy peaks reflected in the mirror of the lake’s clear 
surface. A spectacle of beauty so superb that one would 
gasp to behold it. . . . One in different circumstances, 
that is. 

Bliss looked up. His face was ashen. “Scotty, old 
man,” he whispered, “it certainly looks as if it were all 
off with our party.” 

McAlford, not trusting himself to speak, nodded assent. 

“Scotty,” went on Eppley, “I see in the oil there a lot 
of little bubbles coming up from the bottom. They mean 
gas. There must be gas close to the surface. If—when 
we go in—” his words came slowly in the effort to hold 
on—“it still looks like a. game of drowning or freezing 
I suggest you inhale the gas. That would be a more 
peaceful way to end things than by cold or by the suf¬ 
focation of drowning. Do you understand?” 

Again Scotty nodded. 

Then silence, each resolved to hold on to the very last, 
as is the instinct of preservation, in a thin hope something 
might turn up. 


206 



CHAPTER XXV 
INTO THE FIRE 


P ROBABLY if all the adventurers in history could 
be assembled and asked what has impressed them 
most about being in a tight place their composite 
reply would be: “The amazingly long time a man can 
hang on to life after he has given himself up for lost.” 

At least an hour later the two human leeches on the 
slippery lava bank above the lake of oil, into which they 
expected any moment to slide to their death, were still 
hanging on just as desperately—and just as successfully. 

But the expression on their strained faces was dread¬ 
ful to behold. Both were numb with cold, both exhausted 
by physical and nervous stress of their frightful position. 
Neither spoke. Their eyes were closed. Their skin was 
the color of slate. 

The sun mounting higher and swinging on its course 
finally crept over the ridge above and shed its grateful 
warmth upon them. 

No sign of Eric. No escape had their brains been able 
to contrive to free them from their terrible predicament. 

Feeling the sun’s rays Bliss opened his eyes. Quickly 
he shut them again. He blinked, but not from the strong 
light. 

“Scotty!” he cried. “The oil is stopping!” 

It was. Where there had been a steady stream of 
greasy seepage under their bodies, there was now but a 
series of threadlike trickles. Even while they watched 
these trickles diminished; many ceased altogether. The 
sun’s heat fell upon the bare rock. The oil would not 
207 


ZR WINS! 


evaporate so swiftly as water. Yet in the space of min¬ 
utes it became perceptibly thicker. A gummy residue lay 
where lately had flowed a steady lubricant impossible for 
the two to cross. 

“By gorry!” ejaculated McAlford. “We’re going to 
get out of this mess after all! Who would ever have 
thought it!” He paused for a moment. Then with a 
smile of satisfaction lighting up his broad face he added: 
“Just wait till I see that rascal Olaf again!” 

Steadily the sun rose. Soon both men found they could 
sit up and take off their oil-soaked shirts and wring them 
out. Hanging in their precarious position became less 
difficult. Presently it was possible to pick finger holds 
above their heads. 

Inch by inch the upward climb began. Every foot of 
the way had to be swabbed with their shirts and the 
shirts wrung out before another step were taken. But 
once past the line of main seepages the rest of the ascent 
became easy. 

McAlford paused panting. “Gosh—let’s rest a mo¬ 
ment,” he gasped. “Say, Bliss, how would you account 
for the miracle that saved our lives? I was on the Navy 
Oil Commission a few years ago and I’m hanged if I 
ever heard of any such phenomenon as intermittent seep¬ 
age! Did you?” 

Eppley smiled. “I’ve been puzzling over it while we 
climbed. I believe I have hit the solution. Did you 
notice that the stoppage came after the sun passed the 
axis of the island—the lake too?” 

“Yes, but—” 

“No ‘buts’ at all. I believe that this lake of oil is so 
enormous that there is a regular tide in it. You know 
tides rise and fall in our big lakes of the United States. 
Few people realize the fact. But they do.” 

“Yes,” agreed the other ruminatively, “I know there 
208 



INTO THE FIRE 


is a tide in everything. Even the inelastic surface of 
the solid earth is lifted up a microscopic degree as the 
sun passes over it. A seismograph can register the move¬ 
ment. But I don’t see how even a tide would account 
for the seepage.” 

“It means,” went on Eppley, a note of excitement in 
his voice, “that there must be even a larger reservoir of 
oil besides this we almost fell into; and that when its 
level is disturbed by passage of the sun or moon it drains 
over into its neighbor. 

“The important thing, though, is not the why or how 
of this lake. But the what it is going to mean to the 
nation who can claim it for her own. One of the great 
problems of transpolar flying will always be the question 
of fuel. Neither Europe nor Asia have any oil fields 
near the take-offs for the arctic route. And the limited 
oil in Canada and Alaska is pretty far off the main line. 
Therefore to have an enormous supply like this almost 
exactly on the route, and just about halfway across is 
like an act of Providence. Refineries could be built right 
here on the shore where we are. That plain out there 
would make an ideal location for a city with plenty of 
room for landing fields. The taxes alone would support 
our Navy from now until doomsday!” 

But McAlford, to his friend’s surprise did not show 
any signs of enthusiasm. After a bit he said: 

“That’s all very fine, Bliss. You talk exactly the way 
the writers in our Sunday magazines do. Everything 
fine and dandy except you leave out the most important 
point.” 

“What’s that?” 

“Simply that if this enormous lake of oil once caught 
fire your lovely dream would be at an end. Don’t you 
know that they have the most awful time these days 
putting out fires in relatively small storage tanks that 
209 



ZR WINS! 


sometimes light up out in California? Even with patent 
extinguishers and all sorts of contraptions it is prac¬ 
tically impossible to stop them once they get good and 
started. Now there must be billions and billions of bar¬ 
rels of oil in this lake. It makes me sick to think of 
what would happen if it once caught fire!” 

Bliss listened without comment. Then shaking his 
head sadly he observed: “You are a kill-joy, Scotty, 
if ever one lived!” 

“Well, it’s true, isn’t it?” 

For reply the other scrambled to his feet. “Look 
here, man, we’ve got something else to think about now 
besides burning up this oil tank. How do you know 
poor Eric isn’t up there bleeding to death?” 

Their first sight on reaching the top lent substance to 
Bliss’s words. The snow was trampled down for a space 
of several yards about where the Norsemen had struggled. 
In a depression at one side was a pool of blood. 

“He’s killed him!” barked McAlford. “And I’m going 
to—” 

“Now don’t get excited,” interrupted Bliss. “There 
isn’t anybody here for one thing. And I don’t believe 
that Olaf would dare murder Eric anyway. More than 
likely he lost his temper and only wounded him; then took 
him up to the village for repairs.” 

McAlford stooped with an exclamation of delight. 
“Well, he was excited enough to leave the rifle anyway!” 
he cried, and lifted the repeater from the snow. He ex¬ 
amined it. “He didn’t shoot him, either, for there is only 
one cartridge missing!” 

Further search revealed no additional evidence that 
might throw light on the fate of their friend. Both 
agreed that nothing was to be gained by delaying. 

“No telling what our reception will be by the time we 
reach the village,” groaned McAlford, his nerves par- 
210 



INTO THE FIRE 


ticularly ragged from having discovered his last remain¬ 
ing cigar soaked with oil. 

A very silent march they made across the plain. The 
snow was sufficient impediment alone. But with their 
jaded spirits and the blanket of their anxiety for what 
trouble Olaf might have made on his return, to say noth¬ 
ing of the discomfort of having to walk with clothing 
soaked in crude petroleum, it was a bedraggled pair of 
explorers that trudged back toward the volcano. 

Late afternoon had come before they reached the 
place where the trail took the first rise up the northern 
slope of the mountain. Pure physical exhaustion made 
frequent halts imperative. Now they flung themselves 
down in the snow regardless of the cold, and waited pant- 
ingly for a little returning strength to help them make 
the steeper grade beyond. 

It had become a habit with both by now to study the 
sky every other minute or so. For neither one was ab¬ 
solutely convinced that the ZR-5 was out of the race. 

“Do you know, Scotty, I wouldn’t be surprised to see 
her turn up any moment!” exclaimed Bliss for the mil¬ 
lionth time. 

“I’d be far less surprised to see Welchor. He ought 
to be back this afternoon. I’ve been expecting him ever 
since last night. He’s had time now to finish up at Point 
Barrow and ought to be here any moment.” 

Eppley shaded his eyes with his hand. “Scotty, take 
a look down there on the ice. My eyes are sort of woozy 
after the day we’ve had. I swear it looks to me as if I 
saw a plane parked just beyond the tide crack.” 

“But he wouldn’t leave his machine on the ice, would 
he?” 

“He certainly would. This land is pretty rocky for 
one thing; and, for another, the snow on it makes it im- 
211 



ZR WINS! 


possible to pick a smooth place. The sea ice is always 
the best place for a plane up here.” 

But McAlford’s eyes were no better than his friend’s. 
So the upshot of their doubt was to drag their weary 
bodies a mile closer to the shore and take a decisive look. 
The sight that met their eyes fully rewarded their effort. 

There perched on the ice as big as life stood the plane 
that had pursued them so short a while before, the plane 
flown by Welchor and Scammell. No one seemed to be 
in it or about it. A mooring line visible indicated that 
it had been purposely parked for some time. 

“Means we’d better think twice before we go back to 
the village,” muttered McAlford. 

But Eppley did not reply. He was pondering gloom¬ 
ily the dreadful possibilities of whom the oily scoundrels 
might have brought with them to witness the truth of 
their claim to the land. 

Together they searched the plane for any clues to Wel- 
chor’s plan or to his passengers. Very little was found; 
nothing, in fact, that pointed to anything definite they 
wished to know. A large thermos bottle nearly full of 
hot coffee put a bit of silver lining into their cloud of 
unhappiness. And when McAlford hauled out a bag 
of clothes from the cockpit containing two dry caribou- 
skin shirts into which they promptly changed, life some¬ 
how looked a little rosier. 

“I don’t hesitate to take these things,” remarked Bliss 
a little apologetically, “because it is war from now on. 
War to the knife. Welchor abandoned me to die, and 
told me so to my face. He has been a treacherous crook 
in a dozen different ways. He wouldn’t hesitate to mur¬ 
der either of us if it suited his purposes.” 

“Oh-ho!’ ? shouted McAlford, holding aloft a box of 
cigars. “Now I’m good for a half dozen more rounds! 
Bring on the dogs!” 


212 



INTO THE FIRE 


“All right,” laughed Bliss, “start the old brain work¬ 
ing. What should our next move be, according to your 
way of thinking?” 

“Destroy his plane!” suggested McAlford with prompt 
vigor, as he ripped open the cigars. “Force him and 
Scammell to stay here with us. An American plane or 
dirigible of some sort is bound to show up before the 
summer is over. We can have made him a captive by 
that time and the land will belong to the United States 
as it should.” 

Eppley shook his head slowly. He could not dismiss 
the disturbing thought of who the plane’s passengers 
might be. 

“I’d be all for that,” he agreed, “except that I’m afraid 
he has brought some one along with him. Some one 
that ought to get back.” 

McAlford looked up with quick understanding. 

“Well, why not let’s you and I make a quick flight 
back to the camp at Point Barrow, get help, and return 
with the proper trail of information behind us?” 

Again Bliss negatived the proposal. “It wouldn’t look 
well to steal his plane, in the first place. And in the 
second place, whoever happened to come would find Wel- 
chor in possession; which would, in a way, give him a 
certain right to the land as we have not yet officially es¬ 
tablished our claim to it. Also I still have a feeling that 
there is a chance the ZR-5 might be able to fly and that 
she will be here soon.” 

“You don’t believe what he told us about an explosion 
aboard her?” 

“I don’t believe anything that liar tells us,” snapped 
Bliss, “until I have seen it with my own eyes!” 

“Well, what in sin and thunderation are you going to 
do?” cried the other. “Pm game for anything that will 
bring shame and misery to those sons-of-guns, Welchor 
213 



ZR WINS! 


and Scammell and Olaf the Hunter—damn him!—and 
wait only your word to forward march!” Scotty struck 
a heroic pose, rifle gripped in both hands and cigar at 
the most defiant angle he could tilt it. 

“Once more Fate answers our questions for us,” said 
Eppley quietly; and, taking his friend by both arms, 
turned him forcibly into a position from which he could 
look up the hill in the direction of the settlement. 

Coming down the hill at top speed was a dog team 
and driver. Between clouds of powdery snow the gal¬ 
loping dogs and surging sledge kicked up both recog¬ 
nized the slender long-legged figure racing behind as 
their friend Eric. Apparently he had seen them before 
they had sighted him. For he came directly down across 
the broken floes to the tide crack and crashed out over 
the rough fast ice that lined the shore. He stopped his 
excited team by frantic use of his whip. Over one eye 
he wore a patch secured by a birdskin bandage encircling 
his head. His face was pale and haggard. His mouth 
worked as if to articulate speech. But all that he could 
gasp out was: 

“He’s taken her! He’s taken her!” 

“What? Who? Taken her where? And who’s her?” 
both men flung at him. 

“Kristina—Olaf has taken her—gone away!” he 
panted. 

“But the new man—the one who came in this flying 
machine?” snapped Bliss with an intolerable anxiety. “Is 
he in the village ?” 

Eric stared wildly at the plane. He seemed unable to 
concentrate on anything besides his own grief. McAl- 
ford jabbed him with his thumb. 

“Come! Speak up! We want to know who came in 
this plane. And where he is. Maybe if you tell us that 
we can help you with your girl.” 

214 



INTO THE FIRE 


The Norseman’s wide eyes swung around. His voice 
suddenly under control was hoarse with agitation. 

“Yes, he is in the village. It is his fault! He sent 
Olaf!” 

With a cry of grief he buried his face in his hands. 

“I thought so,” growled McAlford. “Out of the oil 
lake—out of the frying pan, so to speak—into a hotter 
fire than ever! That’s us. Eh, mate?” 



CHAPTER XXVI 
TO THWART A ROGUE 


' BLISS’ suggestion the thermos bottle was brought 
and the rest of the coffee poured into the dis- 



-*■ ■*- traught lover. He became calmer. And bit by 
bit he pieced together the story of his troubles since the 
moment he had disappeared behind the crest of the bank 
of the lake of oil at the mercy of Olaf the Hunter. 

As Eppley had surmised, the bully, Olaf, had really 
had no thought of killing his fellow tribesman. Hatred 
of war and murder was too ingrained in the man’s blood 
to permit him to go to such extremity. However, he 
had been thoroughly aroused and had struck Eric a sav¬ 
age blow in the face with the butt of the gun. Resulting 
bloody nose accounted for the gore the two men had 
found in the snow. 

Apparently then he had had a revulsion of feeling and 
had led the half-stunned Eric back to his own sledge. 
He had given no further thought to rescue of the two 
unfortunates balanced on the edge of the lake at immi¬ 
nent peril of their lives. 

“When I asked him to go back he said it served you 
right,” explained Eric, “and that if you drowned, as he 
thought you probably would, it was your own fault for 
having come to our colony without invitation. 

“Oh, he did, did he!” muttered Scotty truculently. 

Eric made haste to explain that this sentiment was not 
shared by any other of the Norsemen. 

“I didn’t go immediately back to the village because 
Kristina is very fond of seal meat. So I came down 


216 


TO THWART A ROGUE 


here to the ice to kill one. I found the plane and realized 
that some one else must have arrived from your land. 
I was very excited and hurried back. When I arrived 
I found a big ugly man with a face that made me feel 
he was not to be trusted—” 

“Our friend Welchor,” nodded McAlford with a wry 
face. “Good description. Go on.” 

“He was behaving in a very disagreeable manner to 
Kristina’s father, who seemed to be objecting to some¬ 
thing the man had done. Then my brother whispered to 
me that the stranger had asked for a volunteer to go by 
sledge to the south with some important papers. Olaf 
had stepped forward at once. The man gave him direc¬ 
tions and Olaf started off almost immediately.” 

“Alone?” asked Eppley. 

Eric wrung his hands. “No, he took Kristina! I told 
you he took Kristina! And she didn’t want to go!” 

His grief was pathetic. 

Suddenly, as if some one had struck him, Bliss emerged 
from his lethargy. 

“I see it!” he cried. “Welchor always shows more 
brains than I give him credit for. As soon as he found 
that we were here he realized the danger of his plans. 
He has the upper hand; yet he knows there is the chance 
that we might ambush him. If he can get final word 
south to the Orientals who employed him that he has 
really discovered the land and carried out his part of the 
contract he is safe. He can then collect the million dol¬ 
lars they have promised to pay him!” 

“But why wouldn’t it be a great deal more profitable 
for him to stay and stake out claims to all this oil and 
mineral?” protested McAlford. “I believe you’re on the 
wrong track entirely.” 

Bliss seized a handful of his friend’s shirt and shook 
him fiercely in the intensity of his conviction. “I’m not 
217 



ZR WINS! 


on the wrong track! Welchor has been skating on thin 
ice all along. He doesn’t want to linger in this land. He 
doesn’t think about anything but that million. He has too 
long a criminal record behind him, I tell you, to dally 
around waiting for developments up here. He wants his 
pay so he can skip out at the earliest possible moment. 
All he has to do is to fix the fact that the land actually 
exists, that he was first to arrive here, and that those yel¬ 
low men can claim it as planned.” 

Eric pushed himself in between the two. “But he’s 
getting farther and farther away!” he wailed. “We’ll 
never catch him if we don’t hurry! Your gun is our only 
chance !’*’ 

“By gorry, that’s right!” exploded Bliss. “We’ve got 
to act fast and furious right here and now. We’ve got 
to keep Welchor on the island and we’ve got to prevent 
Olaf from going south with the scoundrel’s report. Eric, 
can you take us along?” 

“That’s what I came for!” 

“Very well. . . . Scotty, put that plane out of com¬ 
mission. You have three minutes to do it in. Not per¬ 
manently out. But fix it so those devils can’t use it. 
Can you do it?” 

For answer McAlford strode to the engine and with 
practiced fingers disconnected the electric leads. He held 
up the wires. 

“If we hide these among the rocks he’ll Have to stay 
here or else walk home.” 

Eppley turned to the Norseman. “Now lead the way, 
old top. Do you think there is any chance of overtaking 
him ?” 

Before replying Eric cracked his whip over the heads 
of the impatient dogs and the next moment the sledge 
with its three passengers was bouncing back along the 
broken trail. 


218 



TO THWART A ROGUE 


“He has to stop for meat, 0 explained Eric between 
shouts at his galloping animals. “He will make the south¬ 
ern cape before he sleeps. There are urks and the weaker 
cattle there. I think he will take the caribou as he has 
no other hunters with him. We should go above his 
camp by way of the high land. Thus may we head him 
off.” 

The chase now settled down in earnest. Once around 
the shoulder of the volcanc Olaf’s single trail was joined 
and the dogs swung away into the east. The route led 
along the gently sloping southern coast of the land. The 
range of mountains ahead curved to eastward and par¬ 
alleled the shore line. 

“By George!” thought Bliss as he clung to the swaying 
sledge, “I’m going to visit this country some day in peace 
and enjoy it!” 

Indeed, the beauty of the land was irresistible even in 
the midst of their fatigue and anxiety. To the right 
spread the pale-blue ice; to the left the rolling white land, 
broken here and there by soft brown outcrops of rock. 
Ahead the snow-clad peaks that stalked in lofty grandeur 
to the sea’s very edge. And finally, just behind the trav¬ 
elers, the majestic volcano, notched halfway up its south¬ 
ern slope where the grassy village lay, and capped by a 
billowy cloud of ebony smoke. 

The low sun had rolled behind one of the northern 
peaks when Eric called a halt to feed his dogs. He 
pointed out that he had brought very little supplies for 
fear that he could not make speed enough to overtake 
the fleeing Olaf. 

The halt was made by a fissure in the rocks from which 
issued a thin column of white vapor. While the strangers 
were peering curiously into the hole Eric brought up a 
haunch of frozen musk ox. Attaching the meat to a seal- 
219 



ZR WINS! 


skin line he lowered it about a fathom and secured the 
thong under a heavy stone. 

“One of our natural boiling pots,” he explained. “This 
country is full of them.” 

“I told you we have discovered another Iceland!” said 
Bliss. 

“Only an infinitely richer one,” ventured Scotty. 
“Can’t you see the streams of tourists that will overrun 
the place ten years from now? Yellowstone Park won’t 
be in it with this fascinating land! Just look at the mag¬ 
nificence of its scenery as well as the excitingness of its 
natural phenomena!” 

“Yes,” laughed his friend, “and I suppose there will 
be signs up: ‘Don’t feed the mammoths.’ Do you im¬ 
agine they will ever be any tamer than they are now?” 

“Never,” said Eric, with conviction. “We have tried 
for years to convert those beasts to the same friendly 
terms that practically every other animal enjoys if taken 
young. But we have had no success. The last urk we 
attempted to domesticate killed four people when it was 
less than a year old. They are the most vicious beasts 
we know.” 

Sharply the words came back a few hours later. 

For Olaf was overtaken with unexpected suddenness. 
Apparently the huge Viking had felt the absolute neces¬ 
sity of securing an adequate supply of meat before be¬ 
ginning his six-hundred-mile trek across the polar ice 
and down the Greenland coast to the Danish trading 
posts. Whether he had had any misgivings about the 
trip was not clear. At any rate the three pursuers sighted 
his camp less than twenty miles from the volcano. 

Eric had by this time broken away from the lowland 
and was traveling at least a thousand feet above the route 
his enemy had chosen. This made it possible for him to 
sight the fleeing pair without risking being seen. 

220 



TO THWART A ROGUE 


Olaf’s camp was in plain sight on the white southern 
slope of the coastal range. This lack of secrecy in his 
movements was to Bliss a sure sign of the man’s self- 
assurance. Evidently his enormous size and strength 
made his position among the men of the colony one of 
unquestioned right in all he did. That Eric or any one 
else would dare dispute his departure, even though he had 
had the effrontery to take the daughter of Hroar the 
Leader with him, seemed to have had no bearing on his 
plans. 

“I suggest that we stop here,” said Eppley. “If he is 
going off to hunt we shall easily enough get hold of 
Kristina. And there is the chance that he may have left 
Welchor’s papers behind him. If we can lay our hands 
on them we can kill two birds with one stone.” 

Eric shook his head disconsolately. “He will not dare 
leave Kristina in camp. He knows too well that she 
will escape if she has a chance.” 

Which proved to be the case. For after Olaf the 
Hunter had pitched his little skin tent, the watchers far 
above him saw him lead the girl out and start with her 
across the slope towards a broad pasture several miles 
eastward where a large herd of caribou were grazing. 
Under his arm he appeared to be carrying several of the 
cells. 

When the two had dipped into an intervening depres¬ 
sion in the land Eric led his companions at a trot towards 
the camp. As the winds had shifted around from sea¬ 
ward it was possible, by crouching, to place the tent be¬ 
tween themselves and the dogs. Thus there was little 
risk of the animals raising an alarm. 

To the delight of both the Americans Olaf had care¬ 
lessly left Welchor’s precious dispatches in his sledge bag. 
Bliss tore them open without hesitation. 

221 



ZR WINS! 


“Thank heaven, Scotty!” he cried. “These will hang 
him higher than a kite!” 

“That is, if he doesn’t hang us first,” said the other 
gloomily. 

“We must hurry,” urged Eric. “No man can hunt as 
fast as Olaf the Hunter. No man is so sagacious in 
difficulty.” 

Scotty held out the rifle. “He’ll have to have some sa¬ 
gacity to sidestep the long arm of my little Winchester!” 

But Eric’s anxiety continued to increase while they 
hurried back up the slope. 

“It’s the urks,” he explained. “There are several 
herds of them along the coast here. And even Olaf would 
be no match for a bull like the one that nearly did for me.” 

On reaching the level at which they had originally 
traveled they again turned east. But not for long. To 
their dismay there turned out to be a glacial gorge between 
them and the caribou pasture towards which Olaf was 
heading. This gorge or wide ravine was simply a huge 
notch carved in the face of the mountain by a river of 
ice that had flowed from the lofty comb of jagged peaks. 
Apparently precipitation in recent years had been less than 
in former times. For the glacier had retreated. Now 
it was but a blue-faced pendant far up among the pre¬ 
cipitous crags. As a glacier always cuts a U-shaped 
groove, the walls of the gorge were nearly vertical. 

“There they are!” said Eric suddenly. 

Far down among the rocks, at least a thousand feet 
below, were visible what looked like two black ants crawl¬ 
ing into the ravine from the side on which stood the pur¬ 
suers. It was apparent that Olaf was determined to enter 
the depression and cross without trying to bring up his 
team. The logic of this was not plain, for he not only 
had to make the sharp descent in which he was now en¬ 
gaged; but after crossing the several hundred yards of 
222 



TO THWART A ROGUE 


intervening floor of the gorge he would be forced to 
ascend the opposite wall before reaching the caribou pas¬ 
ture on the far side. 

To McAlford’s question Eric only shook his head. “I 
don’t know,” he said, “it is not like Olaf at all. He 
knows better—” He broke off abruptly. Some inner 
agitation suddenly tautened the lines of his face. 

. . Unless he has seen them further down,” he mut¬ 
tered. “Come!” he snapped. “We must have a look.” 

Perplexed, the two followed him at a trot to a point 
of rock that projected at dizzy height out over the deep 
and snow-filled gorge. An exclamation of fear escaped 
the guide. 

“I was afraid so!” wailed Eric. “See them?” 

Far down along the lower reaches of the ravine was 
visible a number of round brownish patches. These 
patches had the appearance of large boulders. But to 
Eppley and McAlford, hearing a half-gasped monosyllable 
from Eric, these boulders suddenly took on the semblance 
of live animals. And when one moved, swayed sidewise, 
then reared upward on four stumpy legs they knew at 
once that they were looking at a herd of savage mam¬ 
moths. 

Olaf’s strategy was now;^ clear. He had evidently 
known of the presence of the herd. Fearing an encoun¬ 
ter with them he had left his dogs well to the rear, and 
now was on his way to outflank the enemy. Once he had 
safely crossed and killed the caribou he wished for his 
southern trip he could return to his sledge, drive around 
by the sea ice, and pick up his meat before the stupid 
mammoths would be aware of his presence in the neigh¬ 
borhood. He was safe for two reasons: first, because 
the herd was asleep; and second, because he was to lee¬ 
ward of them so no scent went down to betray him. 

Yet, as so often happens, the unexpected erased his 
223 



ZR WINS! 


safety at a stroke. Either he or Kristina stepped on a 
loose rock at the very end of their descent. From far 
up where stood the breathless watchers this rock appeared 
but a pinpoint of black moving slowly down the white 
neve. But when it reached the mammoths and the enor¬ 
mous animals leaped angry and affrighted from their 
slumber there was no doubt about its size. 

They saw Olaf clutch the maiden to him in alarm. Saw 
him hesitate. . . . Safety lay behind. Yet safety to the 
mighty hunter was but small consideration. Already the 
mammoths had seen him and came waddling up the snowy 
slope. Their infuriated snorts at having been disturbed 
were audible clear up where the three men stood like 
statues gazing down upon the scene. 

Then Olaf chose. He chose the danger. Holding the 
girl by her wrist he raced across the narrow belt of snow 
between him and the opposite cliff. He should have 
reached his goal. He was a good runner. And the 
nearest mammoth was at least a hundred yards away. But 
the high spring sun had glazed the surface of the drifts 
in spots. And now, though the sun was high in the south 
and had softened the slope’s white mantle, there still 
were wide glassy areas where a foothold was impossible. 

Olaf struck one of these. The next instant he and the 
girl were sprawling. Downward they slid towards the 
slavering mouths of the waiting herd of irritated mam¬ 
moths, 



CHAPTER XXVII 
THE AVALANCHE 


N O POWER on earth, it seemed, could save Olaf 
the Hunter, and poor Kristina. In horror-stricken 
silence the three men far above watched the 
doomed pair sliding slowly into the maw of death. 

Once or twice it appeared as if they had caught a foot¬ 
hold. But Olaf in particular, probably because he was so 
much the heavier, continued on and on until it looked as 
though he might reach out and touch the nearest mam¬ 
moth. 

Indeed, the end would have come even quicker had not 
the ponderous animals found the deep snow too much for 
speed. With thunderous booming roars they waddled and 
stumped along towards their helpless victims. 

Bliss was about to place his hands over his eyes to shut 
out the horrid sight. There was absolutely nothing to be 
done. To use the rifle would be ridiculous. At such a 
range he was as likely to kill Kristina or Olaf as to hit 
a mammoth. And even if he did hit one of the latter, 
it was unlikely that the bullet would find a vital spot. 
Also there were at least twenty in the herd. 

Suddenly Eric became a madman. At least so it seemed 
to his unhappy companions. With a wild cry he sprang 
out into mid-air and fell sickeningly through space. It 
flashed across the minds of both men that in the extremity 
of his grief he was committing suicide. But, to their 
astonishment, he disappeared in the deep drifts far below, 
only to reappear again. He scrambled out onto the steep 
225 


ZR WINS! 


slope. He fell upon his hands and knees and began work¬ 
ing in crazy scooping movements into the snow. In half 
a minute he had rolled up a spherical mass of the sticky 
stuff. He hove against it, moved it, then fell back mo¬ 
mentarily exhausted as the large ball rolled downward 
toward the scene of tragedy below. 

It must be remembered that the snow was several 
fathoms deep, a whole winter’s accumulation. That it 
was softened and mushed by the high June sun. 

The ball swelled as it progressed. Swiftly it gained 
speed. Soon it fairly flew along. It became the size of 
a small house. It ran sidewise at one point where the 
floor of the gully tilted and collided with the jagged wall 
of rock. It ruptured into at least a score of fragments. 
Most of these continued. They in turn grew large as 
they accumulated more snow. Then, as if by a miracle, 
the whole floor of the gorge began to move. It moved 
much more slowly than did the racing spheres. But it 
slid with brisk acceleration. A dull thudding roar swelled, 
filled the great ravine, and rose in an awful tumult to the 
petrified men on the pinnacle a thousand feet above. 

Both Olaf and Kristina must have seen the avalanche 
rushing towards them. Both must have fully appreciated 
their peril. But only the active girl was able to make a 
move to save herself. With an almost superhuman effort 
she scrambled to her feet and ran, half falling, swiftly 
across the few rods between herself and safety. Just as 
the thundering cataract of snow and rocks engulfed Olaf 
and the herd she sprang to a fingerhold among the jutting 
granite splinters and pulled herself by a matter of inches 
from the dreadful fate that had overtaken her erstwhile 
lover and the herd of ravening mammoths. 

“Well,” ejaculated McAlford when power of speech 
returned, “that was the tidiest piece of work I’ve seen in 
many a day! A case of a man-made avalanche was re- 
226 



THE AVALANCHE 


ported during the Klondike rush; but I never believed the 
story till this minute.” 

But Bliss did not pause to answer. Scrambling down 
the rocky precipice he sprang off into the snow and dashed 
after Eric, who was already running at top speed towards 
the point at which his betrothed had disappeared. 

Kristina lay in a heap. But she was quite unhurt, 
being only faint from fright and the exertion of her last 
frantic efforts. Of Olaf or the mammoths there was no 
sign. At one point far down near the sea-ice a shaggy 
brown leg and an ivory tusk protruded from the snowy 
mausoleum. Both twitched convulsively in the death 
struggles of their colossal possessor. 

No time was lost in making their way back to camp. 
Eric’s and the dead man’s teams combined were none too 
much for the haste Bliss felt must be made if Welchor 
were fully to be thwarted in the deviltry he was bound 
to attempt when he discovered his plane had been tam¬ 
pered with. 

“And there’s always the possibility that the ZR-5 might 
arrive,” he observed with unquenched optimism. 

But Me Alford refused to consider such an eventuality. 
“She was too damaged when we left her,” he said. “And 
there’s bound to be some foundation of truth in what 
those blokes told us about the explosion aboard her.” 

“I don’t care,” persisted the other stoutly. “I shall 
keep on believing that she may come until I know posi¬ 
tively that she can’t.’’ 

On reaching the brow of the hill to the eastward of the 
settlement Bliss asked Eric to camp outside for the night. 
Kristina had been unable to give any information further 
than that the new arrivals were living in the same house 
set aside for Eppley and McAlford. If they had brought 
any passengers with them in the plane she had not been 
told about it. She had not even set eyes on Scammell 
227 



ZR WINS! 


before she had been snatched away by Olaf and made to 
accompany him on his sledge. 

“He put a thong across my mouth,” she added, and 
pointed to two deep blue bruises on the tender skin of her 
pretty lips. Bliss saw the Norseman’s fists clench. 

“Never mind, Eric,” he soothed him, “she’s all yours 
now.” 

But the Norseman’s anxiety persisted. “Suppose the 
new man from the south tries to revenge himself upon 
us?” he suggested. 

“Don’t worry,” growled Scotty. “He’s got other fish 
to fry just now. And two of the fishiest are right here 
before you!” 

Close to the village the two men stopped to recon- 
noiter. But there seemed to be no one about save a few 
children. As it was still mid-afternoon the people were 
probably engaged in their community labors, or else in 
the cavern attending one of the radio concerts which fas¬ 
cinated them so. 

Out of the cavern’s mouth issued the same musical hum 
that tokened the peacefulness of the volcano. “What a 
comfort,” thought Bliss, “to listen night and day to the 
crooning song of the earth’s quiescence. To know with 
a certainty beyond the shadow of a doubt that there is for 
the present no peril from the immeasurable forces of 
subterranean fires which sooner or later may burst forth 
to annihilate the land.’’ 

“Do you actually believe what Hroar told us about the 
hum of his cells being in tune with the earth’s vibrations?” 
asked Scotty as they cautiously made their way towards 
the side entrance of the village green. 

“I certainly do. It has long been known that sixty 
miles below the surface of the earth the pressure and 
temperature are so great that solid rock there flows like 
putty. Yet the inner core is not rock as we know it. 
228 



THE AVALANCHE 


scientists believe it to be more of the nature of meteoric 
steel.” 

But Bliss’s erudition was sadly lost upon his friend. 
For by this time they had entered the grassy area and 
were approaching the little stone house in which Kristina 
had said Welchor was established. McAlford had left 
the rifle with Eric on Eppley’s insistence. For, despite 
the unscrupulousness of the two scoundrels, it was likely, 
so Bliss had pointed out, that the Norsemen would not 
tolerate any sort of strife within the limits of their set¬ 
tlement. Therefore to make a show of weapons even 
against Welchor was to risk losing favor with the local 
public. 

Clad in their brown wool shirts the two men were in¬ 
conspicuous. They easily reached the door of their habi¬ 
tation without exciting the curiosity of the few people 
about. 

But the house was empty. Apparently nothing had 
been touched. If Welchor and Scammell lived there they 
evidently had no baggage to speak of. 

“Where do you suppose he is?” Bliss asked anxiously. 

“Right here, my friend,” replied a familiar voice be¬ 
hind him. 

Both spun about. There, framed in the doorway, 
offensively self-assured as ever, stood Thorne Welchor. 
In each hand he carried a revolver which he held fixed 
upon the two ambushed men while he spoke. 

“Now/’ said he coolly, “we’ll sit down and talk this 
business over.” 

There was a harsh and merciless note in his voice that 
gave neither listener any hope of consideration at the 
hands of the rogue who had such good cause to hate them. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 
THREATS 


“ IT there,” went on Welchor, and indicated with a 
nod of his head the low bench across the room. 
With his toe, so as not to take his eyes off the 
two men, he closed the door. “Now fold your hands in 
your laps. And no impertinence or I’ll do what I ought 
to have done long ago!” 

“Meaning—?” queried Bliss insolently. 

A vicious look and a slight jerk towards him of the 
gun in the villain’s right hand were sufficient reply; and 
also showed the irascible mood the man was in. No 
wonder, too. For, despite the smoothness with which 
his plans had gone, as well as the success attending his 
arrival at the new land, here still in the way of his final 
collection of one million dollars cold cash were the same 
pair of inextinguishable Yankees over whom he had been 
stumbling for nearly a week. 

“First of all, I want to tell you,” he resumed, leaning 
watchfully against the wall, “that nothing you can do 
can stop me now. You both think you are pretty smart. 
You particularly—” he inclined his head towards Eppley. 
“But Thorne Welchor, Esquire, has always proved 
smarter than those who try to meddle with his plans. 
I repeat, therefore, that you may as well give up here 
and now because I have dispatched a messenger to the 
south with final details of my discovery. Furthermore, 
among the papers of this report is a voucher of the truth 
of all that I say signed by a man who is qualified to 
judge.” 


230 


THREATS 


“Whom, may I ask?” quoth Eppley, squirming slightly 
to feel with a secret glow of satisfaction the packet of 
papers just mentioned snugly sewed inside his shirt. 

“Admiral Beckett,” came the startling reply. 

Bliss half sprang from his seat. “You don’t mean to 
say he’s with you!” he cried. 

“Inspecting the laboratories now,” continued Welchor 
with half a sneer. “He’ll not be glad to see you either. 
For he, too, realizes what a fool you are. Indeed, he 
said when he arrived at Point Barrow that he was glad 
that you had left because he was saved thereby the trouble 
of having to put you under arrest for the whole series 
of misconducts of which you have been guilty.” 

“But Joan—Miss Beckett?” 

“In the cavern with her father.” The scoundrel’s sneer 
broadened to a grin of real entertainment. “I wouldn’t 
be so anxious to see her if I were you. She thinks con¬ 
siderably less of you than her father does; which is about 
two notches below nothing!” 

Eppley’s lips came together in a thin line of stubborn 
fury that had none of the heat a man of less steady char¬ 
acter might have shown. A cold fury, too, it was, which 
would have made the florid Welchor squirm had he known 
of its existence even though he was armed. For once 
Bliss Eppley was thoroughly and deeply aroused he be¬ 
came an antagonist ’twere safer to avoid. 

But what could the man’s purpose be? And why had 
he spoken with such assurance about the helplessness of 
the two men before him? Of course he believed that 
Olaf had gotten away south with the dispatches and 
should reach his destination within the month. But what 
was the final success of which he felt so cocksure at the 
present moment? 

These questions soon enough were answered. 

“I wish to make myself clear,” went on the captor. 

231 



ZR WINS! 


“When I reached this settlement and discovered you were 
both here alive, which I admit surprised me, I immediately 
set about the expedition of which I have already spoken: 
a driver to take my papers south. This once and for all 
would settle the matter of my report which I preferred 
not to trust to your dishonest Alaskan communications.” 

“That’s an insult to be remembered,” said Bliss to him¬ 
self. 

“They told us you two were at the lake. We had 
already prospected that body and had discovered it was 
oil. We followed you, but somehow missed your trail. 
My friend Olaf said he left you sitting on the bank. I 
perceived at once that you would discover the plane. So 
I left Scammell there at the lake with orders to place a 
candle in such a way that it would burn to the edge of 
the seepage and set it afire.” 

A muttered exclamation escaped McAlford. 

“Yes,” chuckled the other, “it will make a very nice 
blaze. And you two will be the ones who did it!” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Only that I made it plain to the Norsemen how anx¬ 
ious we were to find you because we happened to know 
that, as you were our enemies, you would do all in your 
power to inflict damage on this land. In consequence, 
when Scammell pretended to go back and hunt for you 
the people were very grateful. They would not do this 
themselves because they were afraid of your rifle. Which, 
I am happy to see, you have had the sense to leave behind 
you.” 

“But it doesn’t make sense!” persisted Bliss. 

“I’m hanged if I see what the fool is driving at either,” 
growled McAlford. 

Welchor’s expression went a shade blacker at the in¬ 
sult. “It’s this: You both seem already to know that 
Scammell and I shall get a price out of our discovery. 

232 




THREATS 


We care nothing for what the land may mean after we 
leave. So if you two will now sit tight and keep your 
hands off my plans I promise to give you a clean field 
after I am settled up. I might even shell out a little 
velvet for you when I reach the south/’ 

“And if we don’t?” 

“If you don’t, that lake will be in flames within the 
hour!” 

Me Alford groaned audibly. 

“And you two will be held to blame. Even the Admiral 
has been primed to believe you were planning the trick 
to get even with me. Think what the loss will mean! 
Goodness only knows how many billions of barrels of 
good oil gone to waste! These people will likely tear you 
to pieces in their anger! . . . And all you have to do to 
save yourselves is to give me your word that you will 
be good, show me where the leads are you took from my 
plane, and I’ll send word down to Scammell to put his 
little light out and there won’t be any fire after all. What 
do you say?” 

Eppley made no reply. Not that for a moment he 
entertained the idea of personal profit. But he wished 
to be sure that he made no false move at this critical time. 

Welchor’s goal was plain enough. All that he and 
Scammell had contracted to do so far as new land was 
concerned was to discover and establish their claim to it 
in order that it might in turn be claimed by the Oriental 
conspirators who had bribed them to eliminate other com¬ 
petitors for the prize. 

And now this goal was all but won. Only the slender 
chance that Eppley or McAlford might convince Wash¬ 
ington of the truth before the evil bargain were consum¬ 
mated stood between the unscrupulous man and full suc¬ 
cess. Hence his efforts to eliminate the two before him 
from his problem. 


233 



ZR WINS! 


Moreover, it was clearer now than ever how hesitant 
he was to wreak physical vengeance upon them. One 
single act of violence might swiftly arouse American 
hostility against him before he could collect the coveted 
million dollars. 

Wherefore it was still further obvious that he sought 
to influence both of them by bribery as well as by threat¬ 
ening to do what seemed irreparable damage to one of the 
new land’s most precious natural resources, namely, burn¬ 
ing the lake of oil. 

“But,” argued Bliss rapidly to himself, “if we let him 
have his way all is lost, no matter if we do save the lake 
of oil. For his way means that the new land can never 
belong to the United States on the basis of my discovery.’’ 

One course was, therefore, open: stubborn refusal to 
entertain for a moment the man’s nefarious offer. Bliss 
shook his head. 

“Nothing doing, Welchor.” 

The baffled crook took a quick step forward. His 
lower lip protruded menacingly. A scowl of anger lined 
his brow. 

“Turn me down, will you?” he snarled. “Very well, 
then I’ll tell you one more little trick that’s nestling in my 
sleeve. You do not yet appreciate the fact that since my 
arrival the Norsemen, or whoever they are, have realized 
your profession is to foster war. They hate war. They 
despise any one who tolerates it. Knowing now what 
you are they will lose no time in ordering you out of 
their settlement.” 

“Now, Mister Welchor,” mocked McAlford, “I’m a 
very nervous man. Don’t frighten me that way or I 
shan’t be able to sleep to-night!” 

“You think I am joking, do you?” 

“Either that or crazy,” came the prompt retort. 

“Very well, my friends, let me inform you that you 
234 



THREATS 


will be very fortunate to escape this crowd of antiwar 
fanatics with your lives. When I explained your military 
duties at home they were furious. Furthermore, it may 
interest you to know that if you make any further trouble 
I shall reveal the fact that Admiral Beckett is in the same 
business. Now really, Eppley, it would be rotten of you 
to be responsible for the death or damage of your best 
girl’s father!” 

For a moment Bliss saw red. There seemed no limit 
to which the fiend across from him would not go. Bribery, 
threats, and finally this sneering promise to put Joan 
Beckett’s father in peril of his life, tokened a villainous 
cunning and imagination almost inhuman. 

"Now you, McAlford,” went on the taunting voice, 
“sit quietly while your friend takes that bit of line from 
off the mantelpiece and binds you. I don’t trust either 
of you any more.” 

As Bliss rose to get the line he faced again the stuffed 
sea birds which perched upon the narrow shelf above the 
hearth. He recalled that on his previous examination of 
the specimens he had found to his surprise that they were 
filled with some sort of cement. Their bodies were, in 
effect, solid rock. There was no time to signal McAlford 
of the plan that flashed across his mind. There was no 
time even to invent some decently plausible pretext by 
which he might distract Welchor’s attention for the split 
second that he needed. So he took the one long chance 
that offered. Glancing towards the door, which was open 
but a crack, he exclaimed: 

“My God, Welchor, there they come!” 

It worked. The scoundrel, taken off his guard, flashed 
a swift glance over his shoulder which gave Bliss Eppley 
the one split second he required. He seized the feathered 
lump of stone and hurled it with unerring aim at the big 
man’s neck. With a sharp loud smack it struck. Welchor 
235 



ZR WINS! 


went down as if he had been shot. The two men landed 
on him almost at the same instant. And before he had 
really regained sense enough to ask weakly what had 
struck him he sat trussed and weaponless on the same 
low bench where his mulish victims had been sitting three 
minutes before. 

‘‘Now/’ observed Bliss, wiping his hands, “we shall 
continue our conversation where we left off.” 

“May I have your permission to light my third to last 
cigar?” asked Scotty. “My nerves are all on edge from 
Mister Welchor’s terrible description of what is going to 
happen if we fail to mind him.” 

“Don’t worry,” foamed the captive, as he squirmed in 
the painfully tight lashings which both mariners knew 
only too well how to execute, “you’re both caught in your 
own net no matter what you do to me.” 

The words were scarcely out of the man’s mouth when 
the door was flung open and Eric hurtled into the room, 
his face as pale as death. 

“Run for your lives!” he gasped. “They're coming!” 

“Now just wait a minute, old scout,” entreated Scotty. 
“You always get excited in times like this.” 

“But they’re coming! All the men! Even the women! 
And they will throw you off the cliff in front of the 
village if they catch you!” 

Suddenly the Norseman’s eye fell upon Welchor sitting 
with a smug smile upon the bench. “He did it!” he 
screamed. “He told them all that has made madmen of 
my friends!” 

Bliss laid his hand on the excited Viking’s arm. “That’s 
all right,” he snapped. “But don’t waste time. Quick! 
Are the girl and the father safe—the ones who came from 
my country with this crook ?’’ 

“More than safe,” was the prompt reply. “The people 
236 



THREATS 


liked them at once. They are lodged in Holgrimson’s 
own house.” 

“Then we must for the present escape.” 

A distant murmur trickled through the window. Bliss 
gripped the arm he held. “And it is equally important 
that we put this fellow where he can do no harm. I fear 
for both the father and the girl so long as he is free.” 

Eric ran a trembling palm across his ashen brow. 
“You might go into the volcano. There is a passage 
up among the lizards. There is a door—” 

From without burst a chorus of shouts and cries, the 
yelps of a human wolf pack. Through the window were 
visible the villagers disgorging from the cavern’s entrance. 
By their angry faces and hoarse voices their ugly mood 
was apparent. 

There was no time to escape. Even if they had escaped 
there was no place to go. Both Americans saw in a flash 
that they were cornered. But being good Americans they 
determined to make the best of a very bad situation. 
Bliss held out one of the automatics. 

“Here’s the other gun, Scotty. I’m not deserting Joan 
and her father. The very best we can do for both of them 
just now is to get Welchor and ourselves out of the way 
until these emotional villagers cool off. Now help me get 
this table and bench before the door.” 

Unceremoniously tumbling the helpless Welchor to the 
matting he seized the heavy pieces and swung them be¬ 
tween him and the angry mob already battering at the 
sandstone panels. 



CHAPTER XXIX 
ESCAPE 

W ITH Welchor under the table and Eppley and 
McAlford backed against the wall, each armed 
and waiting, Eric suddenly regained his wander¬ 
ing senses. Apparently the quiet and studious life he led 
had unfitted him for facing imminent peril with any sort 
of equanimity. Now he emerged from the curious stupor 
into which he momentarily had fallen and literally flung 
himself upon Eppley. 

“You haven’t a chance!” he cried. “We must go into 
the volcano!” 

“But how are we going to get there ?” 

Without waiting to reply Eric dashed into the next 
room. He kicked aside the blue matting. He fumbled 
for a moment at the floor, running his trembling fingers 
along the interstice between two of the broad sandstone 
slabs that spread from wall to wall. Then to the other’s 
astonishment one of these slabs swung silently downward 
revealing a stone staircase that led away into darkness. 
The next instant a faint blue glow illuminated the pas¬ 
sageway as Eric switched on its lights. He spoke quickly. 

“We are in one of the old houses. All are connected 
with the laboratories for the convenience of the workers. 
We can escape this way. I can lock the door on the far 
side. We shall be hid before they can overtake us through 
the main entrance.” 

Bliss sprang back into the front room. He flung a 
word of command to McAlford. He stooped and dragged 
the bound captive to the exit. 

238 


ESCAPE 


“Where can we leave our man?” he asked when they 
were safely through and the slab had swung back into 
place. 

Eric glanced upward with set jaws as the scramble of 
many feet overhead indicated the entry of the angry 
villagers. Before he replied he watched the slab tremble 
with the efforts of the pursuers to force it open. Then 
he said: 

“I used to live here. I had a small workshop off to one 
side. We can leave him there. He will not be discovered. 
But you two should go on. It may be necessary for you 
to leave the volcano altogether. I shall take you to the 
upper level. Only one besides Holgrimson and myself 
know the way. There you can be secure for the present. 
Also from there I can assist you to escape.” 

“Escape,” thought Bliss, “is the last thing in the world 
I’d planned. However, this certainly is best for the 
present.” 

Apparently the narrow winding corridor through which 
they hurried did not connect with the main laboratories 
for some distance. The unceasing hum of the warning 
cells came faintly down and somehow lent a comforting 
note to the unhappy plight in which the explorers now 
found themselves. 

There was not the shadow of a doubt that the Norse¬ 
men had meant business when they sought the two men 
at the house. Welchor had surely done well his work in 
poisoning their minds. This fact was not lost on Eppley; 
indeed, it had made him more insistent that their captive 
be carried along and deposited in the little offset from 
the main passage. There he had been left bound and 
gagged. How long he should have to stay no one could 
say. But there was this comfort to the men who aban¬ 
doned him to suffer, namely that the scoundrel brought 
it all upon himself. 


239 



ZR WINS! 


The tunnel grew narrower and narrower. Frequently 
rough staircases had to be climbed. Steadily the route 
angled upwards. All had now to walk single file. The 
electric lights having come to an end Eric drew from his 
shirt a small torch which cast the same faint bluish light 
as the other lamps had. 

Hum of the warning cells grew louder. It seemed as 
if the sound were carried up on a swift draft of air that 
eddied past the hurrying men. 

“So long as we can hear that music I somehow feel 
safe,” said Scotty. “If ever we get home again I’m 
going to make it my first duty to report discovery of this 
wonderful earthquake alarm.” 

“I should think so,” agreed Bliss. “Yet up here it 
isn’t so much for earthquakes as it is to warn the colony 
against an eruption of the volcano.” 

At this moment the passage began perceptibly to open 
out. Suddenly from ahead came a gleam of daylight. 
Eric extinguished his torch as the luminance of sunshine 
made their way plain. A blast of cold air swirled above 
their heads. 

Rounding a corner the three came abruptly to a huge 
granite doorway swung upon metal hinges and arranged 
to slide over the floor of the cave on rollers. It was a 
striking example of the ponderous permanence with which 
the Norsemen built whatever they planned to use for 
long. 

Just beyond the door was a space about the size of an 
ordinary living-room from which came the daylight. On 
one side its wall was slit from ceiling to floor by irregular 
cracks in the rocks through which was visible the snowy 
plain to northward of the volcano. 

“Why, we’re on the back side!” exclaimed McAlford. 
“There’s the lake of oil just below us.” 

Before replying Eric strode over to the widest of the 
240 



ESCAPE 


cracks and peered out. He turned with an expression of 
sadness and relief. 

“You are safe here/' said he. He inclined his head 
towards the enormous granite door. “That used to close 
upon our prisoners. We placed them here to starve to 
death. For many years we have had no prisoners. As 
I told you, only Hroar and I and one other can open it. 
I shall leave you now and lock the door behind me.” 

“Here, wait a minute!” burst Scotty. “We haven’t 
any food. It is cold as sin, too. Isn’t there some way 
out besides the route we came?” 

“Yes, there is. Back a ways along the corridor we 
have just traversed there is a branch that leads to the 
northern slope of the volcano. I would take you there 
now but I am afraid we should be seen. Therefore, I 
shall return to the village. In the excitement I can get 
my dogs and drive around here unnoticed and rescue you. 
After what you have done for me—Kristina and me— 
it will be but a small return. You may take my team and 
escape across the ice to your own country.” 

“Eric, you fool!” groaned Bliss. “Don’t you know 
that I can’t do what you suggest?” 

“You mean you don’t want to go back?” 

Bliss shook his head in desperation at the other’s stu¬ 
pidity. “No. Were you willing to leave your girl to 
her fate when Olaf ran off with her? Now, can’t you 
understand that I am worried about the father and daugh¬ 
ter who came in the plane. They are alone out there 
with that man Scammell who is iust as much of a fiend 
as Welchor is.” 

“Well, my friend, there is another way. But it is a 
very dangerous way. And even if you did succeed in 
passing through it, which no man has ever done, you 
should certainly be killed on reaching the village. Look.” 
241 



ZR WINS! 


Stepping to the far corner of the room Eric pointed 
to an opening in the wall scarcely two feet high. 

“That leads to the laboratories eventually. But it leads 
through the lizards.” 

“Lizards?” laughed Scotty. “I’m not afraid of liz¬ 
ards. In fact, after Mister Melchor’s threats I’m not 
much afraid of anything.” 

Eric shrugged. “Perhaps my knowledge of your lan¬ 
guage is not so good. I thought a lizard was an animal 
with a long tail that crawled with his belly close to the 
ground; had a long nose—” 

“Exactly,” put in Bliss. “There’s nothing the matter 
with your language.” 

“But they are pretty large,” persisted the Viking. 

“How big?” asked Scotty in sudden suspicion. 

“About twice the size of a seal.” 

“Twice the size of a seal!” gasped the other. “Man, 
they’re not lizards. They’re crocodiles!” 

Before Eric had time to explain further a distant 
murmur sifted up through the open door. At once all 
three knew the villagers were still in hot pursuit. The 
murmur became a muffled clamor. 

“They know the way up here!” exclaimed Eric. “I 
must go at once!” 

In a step he reached the granite portal. Slowly it 
began to swing. 

“Do not worry, my friends. You are safe.” 

The clamor was now an uproar, a growing volume of 
sound that flowed up the long tunnel in a cataract of cries 
and shouts. Then with a crash that shook the very pave¬ 
ment on which the two fascinated watchers stood the 
colossal barrier swung into place and silence fell. 

Absent-mindedly McAlford fumbled in his pocket. He 
pulled out something that might have been most any kind 
242 



ESCAPE 


of filth. He shook his polished head till its tousled 
fringe sailed out. 

“My last cigar,” he said in mournful tone. “My very 
last. . . . And maybe not because I haven’t any more!” 
he added with a sudden inspiration, 



CHAPTER XXX 
CORNERED 


B LISS walked to the outer wall to escape the acrid 
fumes of his friend’s mutilated cigar and for want 
of better occupation proceeded to review theeir 
new plight with an unbiased mind. 

“Does it occur to you, Scotty,’’ he said after a bit, 
“that if Eric and Hroar Holgrimson meet disaster we’re 
absolutely stuck?” 

“It does,” groaned the other. “But I wish you 
wouldn’t remind me of it. We couldn’t possibly squirm 
out of any of those cracks. Even you with your sylph¬ 
like form couldn’t. As for me!” The big man shrugged 
expressively. “Then there is that granite door between 
us and a mob of raving maniacs, though it is too thick 
to let any of their music through. And finally, the one 
means of egress, exit, or escape, whatever you might call 
it, is full of crocodiles!” 

“Lizards,” corrected Bliss, laughingly despite his anxi¬ 
ety. “If there are prehistoric mammoths still alive in 
this strange country I see no reason why antediluvian 
reptiles should not have crawled up into these crevices and 
escaped destruction. Think of the honor of discovering 
them!” 

“You’re welcome to it!” snapped McAlford. “It’s not 
the kind of fame that appeals to me, investigating a cave 
full of crocodiles, or lizards if you want to call them so. 
In the dark, too. Do you realize that?” 

Bliss turned suddenly and clenched his hands to fists. 
“I don’t care if they’re mammoths and crocodiles put 
244 


CORNERED 


together!” he exploded. “If Eric doesn’t return in a 
hurry I m going to take a chance! I am still not sure 
about Joan. According to Eric she and her father are 
safe enough for the present. But heaven only knows 
what will happen when that skunk Scammell returns to 
the village. Even though we had to accept this refuge 
temporarily in order to escape those lunatics, they will 
cool off in a little while/’ 

“Look here,” persisted Scotty stubbornly, “there is no 
use making fools of ourselves. If Eric claims reptiles 
are in there I believe him. He has never lied to us yet. 
Also, as far as your friends are concerned, I’m just as 
anxious to help them out as you. But we’re a whole lot 
more likely to be of assistance in the long run by keeping 
our skins whole, than by converting them into a pair of 
corpses/’ 

Having reached this impasse in their views each turned 
his back upon the other. Scotty walked over and peered 
gloomily out of the crevices through which he could see 
the white plateau and a little of the sea ice. A black 
speck far below indicated where the disabled plane still 
rested. That was the only sign of man’s work in the 
vast spaces over which his eyes roved. 

Suddenly he stiffened. North and east he was able 
to make out the thin blue line of the western edge of the 
lake of oil. Further spread of the lake was cut off by 
the rocky wall which so circumscribed his held of vision. 
Something moving along this strip of blue caught his 
eye. At first he thought it might be a sledge. But at 
this distance no sledge would appear so large. 

“Bliss,” he burst, “did you understand Welchor to say 
that he had left Scammell with orders to set fire to the 
lake if no word to the contrary came down?” 

Eppley sprang to his companion’s side. “By Jove, I’d 
forgotten about that!” 


245 



ZR WINS! 


“Well, isn’t that smoke along the edge of the lake?” 

There was no need to reply. For by this time the 
moving object had grown to a globular mass of black. 
And even while the two horrified men watched, it swelled 
to a rolling billowy cloud of inky vapor. 

The lake of oil zvas afire! 

With incredible rapidity the conflagration spread. As 
if a Titan brush were enameling the great reservoir an 
ebony hue, the blue strip slowly disappeared under the 
rising tide of smoke above it. And while the main body 
of the lake was invisible to the two men, the enormous 
size of the smoke cloud left no doubt that it was being 
wholly sacrificed to the hands of the vandals who had 
flung Nature’s treasures into the sewer of their boundless 
avarice. 

Standing in speechless despair at the dreadful spec¬ 
tacle both men suddenly became sharply conscious of a 
strange sound which had not been audible before. 

“What’s that?” queried Eppley with the sharpness of 
nerves on edge. 

But Me Alford only eyed him dumbly and shook his 
head. 

The former sprang to the granite door and pressed 
his ear against it. But without success. In a stride he 
reached the opening to the lizard’s den and stuck his 
head and shoulders in. 

“They’ll bite you!” warned McAlford in a hollow voice, 
which contained no note of humor. 

Bliss recoiled. 

“It’s the warning!” he exclaimed. 

“The whatr 

“The warning cells! Put your head in here and you 
can hear the roaring of them! A while ago I could just 
make out the music that meant safety. Now they are 
blaring! Listen!” 


246 



CORNERED 


With paling faces both men knelt before the orifice 
and strained their ears. Unmistakably drifted in upon 
them a distant roar. And while neither had heard before 
the cell alarm break loose, yet from careful descriptions 
both by Hr oar Holgrimson and by Eric there was no rea¬ 
son now to doubt that this was its fateful sound. The 
bowels of the earth were for the moment out of tune with 
the cosmic rhythm of the universe. Minor key of the 
broken cadence was herein caught by human cunning and 
magnified that puny man might flee to safety. For how 
could any living creature dare to stand and face convul¬ 
sion of the withered rocky crust on which we live? 

There flashed through both men’s mind a vision of 
swirling heated gases, rivers of fire boiling up from the 
abyss below, eddying through the rockbound passageways 
until it oozed hissingly upon them. And there would be 
the volcano’s gulping paroxysms, spasmodic quiverings 
of the mountainside, until whole slabs of it fell away or 
were torn asunder by subterranean explosion, to disgorge 
the molten lava to the freedom that it sought. 

But what could the two men do? A move in any direc¬ 
tion presaged death in horrible form. Yet to stay where 
they were was to die a thousand deaths in the suspense 
of waiting for the subterranean flames to creep upon them. 

No prison could have been more demoniacally secure. 
Three walls of the rock-bound cell in which they stood 
were hundreds of feet thick, solid lava to the mountain’s 
face. The fourth wall, creviced as it was, presented but 
a grid of basaltic columns each thicker than a man’s bare 
body, and separated only by narrow chinks through which 
the outer sunshine trickled. 

To be sure, there were the two exits. But the door of 
granite which Eric had locked outside must have weighed 
five tons. No human strength could budge it. And the 
other way: a ghastly nightmare of horrid reptiles, loath- 
247 



ZR WINS! 


some clammy creatures, that should have lived and died a 
million years before. 

Moreover, even should the wretched pair escape, what 
had they then to face but torture at the hands of the mad¬ 
men who chose to believe their colony had been betrayed? 

And now, surmounting all the unspeakable agony of 
mental apprehension, they stood transfixed and listened 
to the roaring cells which rang a death knell sure as sun¬ 
rise from the cauldron of the mountain’s fiery depths. 

As they stood contemplating the black mouth of the 
entrance to the lizards’ den, cold sweat bathing their fore¬ 
heads, their jaws gripped to prevent a telltale quivering 
that had permeated every muscle in their bodies, some¬ 
thing else of a dreadful import was happening just be¬ 
hind them. 

At first it was but a wisp of vapor drifting in between 
the chinks that led to the outside world. One would have 
said that a bit of grayish wool was floating before the 
breath of an idle breeze. Soon there were two such wisps, 
then three more, four—all furtively sifting in through the 
narrow apertures that had been filled with lovely sunlight. 

Presently these wisps of smoke, for that they were, 
combined as they flowed along the still air of the room 
and formed a thin cloud. It was a very thin cloud. Out 
in the open, say on a street crowded with automobiles, 
neither man would have given half a thought to such a 
cloud. The same was said of the drift of insidious poi¬ 
son gas across No Man’s Land in France. Yet that sin¬ 
ister drift fell upon men’s throats and throttled them with 
such swiftness of asphyxiation that often not a single 
soldier lived to tell the tale. 

It was Eppley looking down who first remarked the 
smoke. He did not at once turn to investigate its origin. 
His mind was too intent upon the already hideous com¬ 
plication of perils that beset himself and friend. When, 
248 



CORNERED 


after a moment, he did glance around, the daylight had 
been all but blotted out. The little room was filled with 
choking fumes. 

It was to his credit that at once he realized whence 
came this final straw upon the burden of their plight. 
So enormous had the cloud of billowing vapor from the 
burning lake of oil become that it had drifted down upon 
the upper slopes of the volcano and now was smothering 
them in black. 

A question flashed across his half-stunned mind: 

“Could the flaming lake of oil account in any way for 
the eruption about to break?” 

But this was not a time for speculation. 

“No choice!” he hurled at the gaping McAlford. 

He began to tug at his outer shirt. It still retained 
some of the crude oil that had been soaked up during 
their unhappy visit to the lake. He tore it off and by 
help of his foot rent it into pieces. 

“Take this,” he barked. “Light it. Your automatic 
is loaded. Come!” He dropped to his knees before the 
hole. 

“Npt in there!” half sobbed Scotty. 

Over his shoulder as he crawled Bliss hoarsely made 
reply: 

“It’s our only chance! If I’ve got to die I’m going to 
do it fighting!” 

Which, as he afterward declared, when Scotty ban¬ 
tered him for his bravery, was far more heroic than he 
felt. 



CHAPTER XXXI 
THE LIZARDS 


B LISS lit his torch almost at once. He was leading 
the way and he wanted to have a look at one of 
the “crocodiles,” as Scotty insisted on calling them, 
before he laid his bare hand on the animal. 

The tunnel enlarged rapidly and soon both men were 
able to walk upright and abreast. Somehow or other, 
now that they were embarked upon their mad effort to 
escape the eruption indicated by the howling alarm cells, 
their courage had returned. Both had felt certain that 
once they entered the passageway which Eric declared 
led to the lizards’ den they would at once come face to 
face with the loathsome reptiles. Added to this was their 
agonizing nervousness about the eruption. Hroar had 
not been at all specific as to the interval of time between 
the sounding of the alarm and the catastrophic tragedy 
which it signified. Now that the alarm had been going 
for several minutes and also that they had traversed at 
least a hundred yards of the tunnel towards the lizards, a 
shade of self-confidence began to assert itself in their 
actions. 

Eppley kept a bit ahead, for his major apprehension 
still was the eruption. McAlford, in greater trepidation 
about the nightmarish creatures he expected to encounter 
at any moment, tended to lag behind. 

As the tunnel twisted and turned it continued to grow 
larger and wider. Also the roaring sound of the alarm 
continued its incessant though distant uproar. 

250 


THE LIZARDS 


“Hanged if it doesn’t sound exactly as if a whole lot 
of gas engines were going at once!” exclaimed McAlford. 

The tunnel turned suddenly. Bliss nearly pitched head¬ 
long into a sort of crater or dark well some twenty feet 
in diameter. He clutched his friend’s arm on the very 
brink of the inky chasm. 

“Gorrv Maud!” croaked the other. “Is this the end of 
it?” 

For a few seconds the answer to Scotty’s question 
seemed to be an unmitigated ‘yes.’ For even by holding 
up their blazing torches no escape from their hazardous 
position presented itself. 

“But where are the lizards?” was on the tongue of each 
man to ask. 

The ledge on which they stood extended on either side 
around the circular well of rock, but plainly narrowed to 
but an inch or so long before it reached the opposite wall. 
Overhead the ceiling was roughly visible in the torches’ 
flare. Below them fifteen feet or so could be seen the 
floor of the place covered with what appeared to be 
rounded boulders. Any means of descent was absent. 
Not a crevice nor a cranny into which a toe or a finger 
might be placed. 

“And there’s the way out,” said McAlford, while the 
other bent down and studied the vertical wall for some 
signs of a foothold. He pointed towards an irregular 
opening on the far side through which came the faint 
bluish glow of electric lights as well as the interminable 
roaring of the alarm cells. 

But Bliss never answered. He sprang back clutching 
at his companion’s legs and yanked him into the tunnel 
from which they had just emerged. 

“What the mischief?” blurted McAlford. “You didn’t 
see—?” 


251 



ZR WINS! 


“The -floor!” gasped Bliss, his breath coming in sharp 
jerks. “Those boulders on the floor—!” 

“Yes?” 

“I saw — one — move!” 

Scotty crept to the edge of the abyss. Cautiously he 
held his torch so that its light fell upon the dark brown 
lumps below. As he looked one of the lumps quivered, 
writhed up and over sidewise, revealing a white and scaly 
belly to which were attached four thick legs terminating 
in long gleaming black claws. The body was about two 
feet in diameter. The tail was at least ten feet in length. 
The jaws ran back from a pointed snout for a distance 
equal to a man’s arm from wrist to shoulder. As the 
horrified Scotty watched, the jaw of the prehistoric lizard 
swung open in a gigantic yawn disclosing double rows of 
murderous white teeth, then whipped together with a snap 
that made him dodge involuntarily. 

“I don’t care!” he whined. “I don’t care one hang 
what happens to us now! I’ll never go down there!” 

Bliss, feeling much the same surge of nauseating fear 
that had swept his friend’s nerve completely away, was 
unable for a moment to reply. Then with an effort he 
regained control of his emotions and leaned over the 
wretched man cowering at his feet. 

“Come, come! We’re not done for yet!” he exclaimed. 
“We are armed. And those beasts are bound to be ter¬ 
rified at fire. If we throw one of our torches down 
there in such a way as to drive them into a corner we can 
make a dash for the outlet on the other side and escape 
before they can possibly get us. Now watch.” 

Unrolling the whole ball of his shirt that made the 
torch he held, he turned it into a fire bomb. Its flames 
sprang up and illuminated brightly the entire cavern. 
That there was no other escape than the square doorway 
below and opposite was now made certain. That the 
252 



THE LIZARDS 


sleeping reptiles covered the entire floor was equally and 
horribly certain. 

Bliss stepped to the edge. Scotty, tom between ter¬ 
ror and a dreadful curiosity, followed. 

“The minute they get out of the way jump and run 
for your life!” ordered Bliss. 

Raising the ball of fire above his head he pointed his 
automatic at the lizard nearest the entrance and pulled 
the trigger. The next instant the flaming missile hurtled 
downward squarely into the center of the curving backs 
that had begun to squirm and rise the moment that the 
shot rang out. Mingled with the myriad echoes of the 
pistol rose a chorus of loathsome squeals and gargling 
hisses. 

Both men toed the brink of the well ready to jump. 
McAlford inspirited by the consternation the firebrand 
spread among the enormous lizards held his torch aloft. 
Both gripped their revolvers ready to use them when the 
moment came. 

At first it seemed as if only a riot had been precipitated 
among the reptiles. Those nearest the flaming mass of 
oily rags at once scrambled outward in a frenzy of fear. 
But their escape was not at once attained. For those 
further away, still stupid from their torpid slumber, con¬ 
strued the move only as an attack upon their peace and 
quiet. Whereat they resisted their bed mates’ onrush 
with a vigorous counterattack accompanied by grunts and 
bloodcurdling guttural roars. 

But it is an axiom of nature that the strength of fear 
is greater than that of anger. So the infuriated defenders 
of the outboard berths were, in the space of a few mo¬ 
ments, forced to retreat before their panic-stricken breth¬ 
ren fleeing before the flames. In consequence, those be¬ 
yond soon had a glimpse of the licking firebrand; and 
they in turn did their best to escape. 

253 



ZR WINS! 


The sum total result was that within less than a minute 
of Eppley’s strategic stroke the floor below was cleared. 
Before the door one huge reptile lay motionless. In the 
center still burned the oily rags. On either side, huddled 
noisily against the walls, were half a hundred frightened 
monsters that slobbered and bit and squealed against 
their kind. 

“Jump!” shouted Eppley. 

Like a pair of rubber balls the two men struck and 
bounded to the door. Probably before the lizards even 
saw them they had darted through and onward toward 
their goal. 

The tunnel led upward again. It was wide and con¬ 
tained electric lights that by their soft blue glow made 
the torches unnecessary. Suddenly Bliss halted in his 
tracks. 

“Listen!” he hissed. McAlford caught himself sharply. 

From just around a bend in the tunnel came a familiar 
voice. Both recognized it as Scammell’s. He was speak¬ 
ing angrily. He paused. Then, after a moment of 
silence, there came to the straining ears of the anxious 
pair a low but distinctly feminine outcry. 

Bliss Eppley gripped his friend’s arm with a ferocity 
that made even the well-padded McAlford wince with 
pain. 

“It’s Joan!” he snapped through gritted teeth, and 
sprang ahead. 



CHAPTER XXXII 
JOAN 


M cALFORD dashing after his companion collided 
heavily with him at the turn in the tunnel which 
brought them into view of the speakers they had 
just heard. Fortunately, in the dim light the two ex¬ 
plorers were not visible. Ahead under one of the pale- 
blue cavern lamps they witnessed a curious gathering. 

Joan Beckett stood backed up against the rock wall. 
With hair awry and one hand clutching her slender throat 
she gave evidence of having been overtaken after swift 
pursuit. 

Facing Joan stood Scammell. With feet apart, bullet 
head thrust forward, and linger shaking in the girl’s de¬ 
fiant face, his threatening tone needed no words to make 
more clear his mood. 

But what completed the picture, and in fact what had 
made Bliss Eppley pause in his mad rush to the assistance 
of the girl he loved, was a group of live or six scowling 
Norsemen just behind Scammell. These men were taking 
no part in the dispute. But it was patent from the way 
their expressions coincided with Scammell’s ugly one that 
his issue was also theirs. 

As Joan seemed to be in no immediate peril of her life, 
Bliss realized at once it were better to act with caution 
in order to assure success. 

“We’ve got the automatic,” Scotty reminded him in a 
whisper. 

But Bliss’s mind was engaged upon another matter: 
Why weren’t the Norsemen more concerned with the 
255 



ZR WINS 


alarm that still roared down the cavern’s twisted corri¬ 
dors? That instant Scammell’s snarl broke out again. 

“Make your choice, Miss Beckett, and make it quick. 
These fellows say that Eppley and McAlford are to 
blame. Both are gone. Your father’s disappeared, so 
has Welchor. You know where your father is. Tell us 
and everything will be all right. Otherwise—” He 
paused. 

“Otherwise what?” snapped Joan with no trace of 
surrender in her firm voice. 

Scammell’s hand dropped to her wrist with a swift 
cruel grip. She wrenched it instantly away. “Don’t you 
dare touch me!” 

From the Norsemen came a growl of impatience. One 
of them spoke to Scammell in a tone too low for Bliss to 
hear. Then— 

“All right, Miss Beckett,” Scammell went on, “you 
needn’t tell us if you don’t want to. This bunch say they 
have got to get out of here. They are scared about 
something. They have a nice little place where we can 
lock you up. And we are going to do it.” 

“Come on,” urged Scotty again in a low tone. “We’re 
armed.” 

Bliss shook his head. “No, not unless necessary; I 
think I can handle them alone. You stay back here in 
the shadows. If I seem to be getting the worst of it, 
shoot. Watch Scammell whatever you do.” 

Before McAlford could stop him Bliss strode forward. 
As he reached the group of Norsemen they retreated in 
surprise. Unarmed as they were and withdrawn for 
the moment from the mob spirit of their fellow villag¬ 
ers, they evidently had no appetite for combat. 

Before Scammell could realize what had happened Bliss 
spun him about so that he staggered and half fell against 
the wall. 


256 



JOAN 


“Taken to insulting ladies, have you?” snapped Bliss 
contemptuously. 

But Scammell’s feelings had gone beyond the point of 
speech. Regaining his balance he sprang catlike for the 
man who had so far thwarted his and Welchor’s chance 
for winning a fortune. 

Fully prepared for the attack Bliss met it with a crash¬ 
ing blow which stretched the furious Scammell stunned 
and bleeding on the stony floor. 

At once there rose an outcry from the Norsemen. 
Chattering and gesticulating their resentment at such in¬ 
trusion they closed in. 

“Run for the entrance, Joan!” Bliss shot at the girl 
still pressed against the wall behind him. 

“I’ll not run,” came her sharp reply. Out of the cor¬ 
ner of his eye Bliss saw her stoop quickly and take a re¬ 
volver from the prone man’s inner pocket. 

“Shall I shoot?” came from Scotty in the shadows. 

“No—No!” And to the girl, “Nor you, Joan. It is 
not necessary.” 

With that Bliss gave vent to a roar of battle and with 
fists swinging leaped toward the oncoming Norsemen. 
Down went the leader with a grunt of pain. The second 
man staggered back, palm to his streaming nose. The 
third hesitated, and, being unversed in the art of pugilism, 
sought to ram Bliss with his head. Which maneuver the 
latter sidestepped so neatly that the Viking nearly brained 
himself against the lava wall beyond. 

“Now go —you idiots!” bellowed Bliss. “Shoo!” 

At which, to the vast delight of Scotty who now ap¬ 
peared, the remaining members of the squad turned and 
fled pattering down the tunnel. As quickly as they could 
scramble to their feet the other two rose shakily and ran 
after their fellow tribesmen. 

257 



ZR WINS! 


“Completely took them off their guard/’ laughed Bliss. 
“They weren’t expecting action so soon.” 

He turned to Joan Beckett. 

“You’re a brick!” he exclaimed, “to stand by me that 
way.” 

“I’d do as much for any man outnumbered,” was the 
prompt retort. 

“Any man?” queried Bliss wistfully. 

“Look here,” broke in Scotty roughly. “This isn’t a 
tea party. That alarm is still going. We’ve got to get 
out of here in a hurry, don’t forget that.” 

Bliss prodded the prostrate Scammell with his foot. 

“Get up. We’ll settle this later.” He stooped and 
helped the thoroughly cowed conspirator to stand. 

“Where are you going?” asked Joan suspiciously. 

“That’s so, you don’t understand.” Bliss spoke rapidly. 
Scotty, nearly wild with anxiety, muttered profane urgings 
for them to go. 

“Understand what?” 

“That noise we hear. Listen.” Louder than ever 
boomed the roar that had compelled them to dare the 
lizards’ den. “It means the volcano is about to break 
out in eruption.” 

Joan, still hesitating, paled slightly. “But how do I 
know where you are taking me?” She gave the man 
before her a searching look. 

“How do you know?” said Bliss, hurt deeper even than 
his voice told. “Joan, you know because you know I 
love you. I’m here mostly because I love you. I—” 

“Jumping tomcats!” cried McAlford in disgust. “If 
you love her, come on!” Yanking Scammell after him 
the indignant speaker started towards the outside air and 
safety. 

“Good for you, Mr. McAlford!” Joan shouted, and 
trotted after him. Over her shoulder she shot Bliss 
258 



JOAN 


Eppley a look the dim light hid; a look that only a 
woman can give. 

At that moment, to the horror of the two navy men, 
the alarm ceased. 

“Probably means the actual eruption has begun!” cried 
Scotty. 

Bliss, his heart in his throat, thudded on. For, as the 
other had suggested, if the sounding of the earthquake 
alarm by the cells warned the colony against volcanic 
catastrophe, it was reasonable to suppose that once the 
eruption began the cells no longer functioned, 



CHAPTER XXXIII 
ZR WINS! 


A ND then—” 

Both men in telling their story always pause at 
* this critical point to make sure that their audience 
shares with them some of their indescribable astonishment 
at what befell them next. For it must be remembered 
that both were by this time in a state of utter despera¬ 
tion. After their mad flight through the tunnel, their 
miraculous escape from Scotty’s “crocodiles,” their lucky 
rescue of Joan Beckett, and their final assurance that the 
ceasing of the alarm could mean naught but instant ex¬ 
plosion of the entire volcano, to come upon the sight they 
did was a shock that neither recovered from for hours. 
The orderly sequence of events was as follows : 

First, the tunnel the four traversed led not downward 
toward the laboratories, but up. So that when, suddenly, 
they found themselves with no barrier ahead emerging 
into the clear air of outdoors they immediately saw that 
they were at a point on the volcano’s southern slope con¬ 
siderably above the level of the village. 

Speechless they stood in the snow gazing down upon 
the green settlement, the clustered Norsemen, the dogs 
and the children. 

And, on the outer edge of it all, hovered the ZR-$! 
Speechless they stood and gazed as if waking from 
a dream, a hideous nightmare that had left them stunned 
and exhausted. Speechless they stood, dum founded at 
the spectacle. 

Where was the smoke from the burning lake of oil? 
260 


ZR WINS! 


Why was there no excitement among the colonists at the 
prospect of the approaching eruption? Why—? 
Where—? 

The two explorers turned to one another, their mouths 
and minds one seething mass of questions. 

Silently they shook hands. 

“I should say,” remarked Bliss slowly, “that we have 
been for the past half hour a good deal like two lively 
pieces of butter in a red-hot skillet!” 

“You describe us with impeccable accuracy,” agreed his 
friend. “May I ask if you can account for any of these 
other miracles?” 

“Only the alarm,” laughed Bliss. “That was undoubt- 
ably the noise of the dirigible’s engines filtering up 
through the cavern’s tunnels in such a way as to distort 
it beyond recognition. As for the mystery of how the 
lake of oil has been extinguished or how the ZR-5 reached 
here, or why—” he pointed to the crowd below—“our 
friend Welchor is standing there apparently in happy 
conversation, I cannot even remotely guess.” 

In mute appeal he turned to Joan. She shook her head. 

“I know little more than you do. Mr. Welchor brought 
me and my father here. The next thing I knew came 
the riot. A man named Eric told us he was going to 
sledge around the mountain to where you were. My 
father joined him.” 

“Then he wanted to see us?” 

“Of course,” smiled Joan. 

“But why ‘of course’ ?” 

For reasons of her own she paid no heed to the ques¬ 
tion. “This man Scammell tried to bully me into telling 
where my father had gone. He chased me through the 
cavern. Said a Norseman called Olaf the Hunter had 
been killed and the visitors were held to blame. He had 
just caught me when you two came along. 



ZR WINS! 


“Come on, let’s go down,” broke in Scotty. “If you 
two turtledoves persist in dawdling all the time we’ll miss 
the train home.” 

At which Bliss shot a hopeful glance at Joan. But she 
only arched her brows and avoided his look. 

There seemed nothing left but to descend. This they 
did circuitously and with caution. There was no assur¬ 
ance that the villagers had changed their tune. There 
was not even assurance that Captain Devon, who stood 
talking to Admiral Beckett and Welchor, would still be 
friendly. 

“But,” argued Eppley, “if we can only get under the 
wing of the dirigible we shall at least be temporarily 
safe from the Norsemen and from that crook.” 

Dodging from rock to rock they reached the level of the 
village green. Dashing from cover they plunged through 
the gaping crowd and presented themselves to the aston¬ 
ished Skipper. At once a growl of protest went up from 
the Norsemen. Captain Devon answered it with a stern 
look and held out both his hands to the ragged refugees 
who had so unexpectedly appeared. Joan gave her father 
a bear-hug which enabled her to whisper something in 
his ear. He grinned and glanced at Eppley. 

“You don’t seem popular here,” he said quietly. There 
was a twinkle in his eyes that escaped the disconsolate 
lieutenant. 

Welchor elbowed his way toward them. “I shouldn’t 
think they would be, sir. They—” 

“Never mind an argument,” interrupted Admiral 
Beckett. “You understand, Captain Devon,” he added 
to the Skipper, “that our time is short. We still have a 
chance to finish if this good weather holds.” 

Half dazed with bewilderment and groggy from ex¬ 
ertion and lack of sleep Eppley and McAlford permitted 
themselves to be directed to a ladder under the control 
262 



ZR WINS! 


car up which they wearily climbed. The former yearned 
for a friendly word from his Joan. But her persistent 
coolness left him hopeless and confused. 

That the ZR-5 had received a good deal of repair work 
since last they’d seen her was apparent to both. She 
still was shy one pair of engines, and her rudder was 
largely patched. The rent in her sheathing was neatly 
closed; her control car had been roughly rebuilt. That 
such work could have been done on the ice seemed out 
of the question. 

Both men waited at the hatch for the Skipper. 

“You look completely done in,” he told them kindly. 
“And I see no reason why both shouldn’t have a few 
hours sleep before you do anything else.” 

“But what—how did you get here?” stammered Bliss. 
“Does Admiral Beckett realize what Welchor has done? 
Why—?” 

Captain Devon laid his hand gently on the bedraggled 
speaker’s arm. “Never mind those questions now, my 
boy. Take a bit of sleep and then you shall know the 
whole truth. But rest assured that everything is all right.” 

Bliss suddenly recalled the packet of papers inside his 
shirt which he had taken from Olaf’s sledge before that 
unfortunate creature had been overwhelmed by the ava¬ 
lanche. He dragged them out. “A little more evidence, 
sir,” he said. 

He went aft towards the sleeping quarters. He slipped 
off his grimy clothes and rolled like a log into one of 
the bunks. 

But sleep would not come. There was still too much 
unanswered. 

Indeed, the last thing he had seen on entering the 
dirigible was Thorne Welchor climbing the ladder into 
the control car as if nothing had happened. Why wasn’t 
he continuing in his own plane? Or, if it were still out 
263 



ZR WINS! 


of commission, why had he not reported the matter and 
insisted on the missing parts being replaced ? Indeed, how 
had he escaped, at all ? 

Bliss’s thoughts turned dully to Joan’s father. Why 
was the old gentleman so noncommittal? If he believed 
Welchor’s side of things he would certainly have shown 
more hostility to both men when they rejoined the ZR-5. 
On the other hand, if he had finally been convinced of 
the justice of their claims he would not have been so 
cool towards them. 

Then Joan. ... He groaned. “Does she still think 
that I am the scoundrel Welchor told her I was? 
What—” 

But at that instant sleep mercifully fell upon the ex¬ 
hausted and melancholy traveler. 

He was awakened by being violently shaken. Having 
been in the midst of a dream wherein he was beset by 
mammoths as large as tenement houses, lizards the size 
of dirigibles, and Norsemen thirty feet high, it is not to 
be wondered at that he nearly leaped through the bottom 
of the bunk above him. But recognizing McAlford’s 
voice as well as the asphyxiating odor of his friend’s 
powerful cigar, he sank back and demanded to know the 
reason for this assault. 

“Nothing in particular,” said the other in a dry tone, 
“except that it’s next morning and I thought it about 
time you came to.” 

“Next morning!” 

“So the quartermaster tells me. Judging by the way 
I’ve slept I should say it might be the morning after 
next.” 

Scotty twisted his face into a grimace that Bliss knew 
meant he was trying to look serious though he didn’t 
feel serious at all. 


264 



ZR WINS! 


“Oh, yes,” he went on, “I forgot to tell you that we’re 
right over the North Pole. I thought you might like to 
come out and have a look.” 

“You blamed lunatic!” shouted Bliss and sprang to the 
deck. 

In ten minutes he was shaved, into a clean shirt, and 
on his way to the pilot house. He found Admiral Beckett 
and Captain Devon there before him. 

“The Pole,” said the Skipper and inclined his head 
towards the ice pack several hundred feet below. Had 
he said, “There goes a Ford,” or, “Do you see that seal 
on the ice?” he could not have been more casual. 

Silently Bliss gazed down. On every side as far as he 
could see spread the pack. Except that it was less broken 
and ridged it was exactly the same wilderness of snow- 
covered ice over which he had flown and sledged so short 
a while before. 

And yet it was different. For while the outward aspect 
of the Summit of the World was not remarkably unlike 
most of the three million square miles of ice that sur¬ 
rounded it, the things it stood for made the seeing of it 
enthralling beyond description. 

From this point there was no such thing as north or 
east or west. No matter in which direction a man stepped 
from the axis of the globe he could move only south. 

At this point the days were one year long. Morning 
came in April. June was noon; for then the circling 
sun achieved its highest altitude above the horizon. In 
September ended the three months’ afternoon; and on 
the twenty-third of that month the sun set for the long 
black bitter night of the Pole. 

The ice at this point was nearly 10,000 feet above the 
bottom of the Polar Sea. The Antipodal Pole was, con¬ 
versely, elevated by nearly an equal amount. Thus was 
largely proved the theory that the earth is tetrahedral in 
265 



ZR WINS! 


configuration; flat on top and peaked on its bottom, the 
South Pole. 

Towards this point on the surface of the globe had 
men striven for five long centuries. Death and indescrib¬ 
able sufferings had not stood in their way. At this point 
had been planted the Stars and Stripes before the flag 
of any other nation. 

This point, though termed the North Pole, was directly 
south from the Magnetic Pole, a tremendously more im¬ 
portant spot to mankind. 

Across this point was destined in future ages to stream 
an unceasing cataract of commerce, of hurrying men and 
women on business bent, of leisurely tourists determined 
to see the romantic spots of their globe before the end. 

What more romantic spot exists ? 

Entered the radio operator and handed Admiral Beckett 
a yellow sheet. Twice the Admiral read the message. 
He put on his glasses and read it again. He handed it 
to Captain Devon to read. 

“That settles it, I’d say,” he snapped. 

With a side glance at Eppley the Skipper queried: 

“Is there any reason why I shouldn’t tell him the whole 
story now, sir?” 

“None whatever.” 

Whereupon Bliss learned what his curiosity craved. 

So far as the ZR’s arrival at the Norse village at such 
a critical moment was concerned, it had been a coinci¬ 
dence, to be sure; but by no means a miracle. Shortly 
after Eppley and Me Alford had left her she had been 
put into commission by rigging a small jury rudder and 
starting two of her engines. Welchor’s alleged explosion 
was a pure fabrication. Instead of attempting to reach 
the new land at once Captain Devon had very sensibly 
taken advantage of the favorable wind and weather and 
had flown her without incident back to Alaska. At the 
266 



ZR WINS! 


Point Barrow Camp her rudder had been rebuilt and 
major repairs rushed to completion. Finally, knowing 
the latitude and longitude of the discovery, her commander 
had made his second flight out over the Polar Sea with 
almost the speed of his first one. He had reached the 
volcano just in time to find Welchor, whom Kristina had 
released, raving and tearing his hair because he thought 
Scammell, who had disappeared, must have made off 
with his plane. 

The joke of it was that Welchor had suddenly lost 
his nerve and confessed everything with the understand¬ 
ing that he would not be punished. He described in de¬ 
tail the plot in which he had been engaged. He told how 
Scammell had been concealed among the rocks while 
Eppley and McAlford were putting the plane temporarily 
out of commission by hiding her electrical connections. 
The persistence of these two men, he admitted, as well as 
his growing doubt about his ultimate success, had so 
unnerved him that he then and there concluded to confess. 

“But why has the lake of oil stopped burning?” burst 
Bliss, unable to control his curiosity on that point. 

The Skipper reached over and patted him on his back. 
“Another leaf in your laurels, my boy. That lake would 
have burned long ago in this volcanic country if it had 
been just oil. But through the oil bubbles a continual 
stream of gas. One of the Norsemen, your friend Hol- 
grimson, gave me a sample of that gas. It is helium.” 

“Helium!” 

“Absolutely. You have discovered the only large natu¬ 
ral helium gas-well in the world. And helium being the 
one safe gas, of course makes it far more valuable than 
any precious mineral we might have found.” 

“But the fire?” 

“Well, you remember that helium not only is nonin¬ 
flammable, but it is a noncomburent. It smothers any 
267 



ZR WINS! 


flame near it. Soon after Scammell’s sinister fuse began 
its work a light north wind picked up and 'flip ! 9 the fire 
went out. That’s what has happened in the past every 
time a volcanic bomb fell into the lake. Else it would 
have been burned up long ago.” 

Bliss nodded smilingly. “That explains why the lake 
went out, sir. And how you managed to get Welchor 
aboard. And I know already that what we thought were 
the alarm cells was only the noise of your motors sweep¬ 
ing into the cavern. But there is still something else I’d 
like to know.” He glanced towards the Admiral, who 
twinkled back in quick understanding. 

“My boy,” said the old sea dog, “you have won your¬ 
self an enviable position in the hearts of all Americans. 
When that rascal Welchor told how you had struggled 
up over the ice and reached the land just ahead of him 
Devon took his actual words down and sent them by 
radio to Washington with my other report.” 

“Thank—thank you, sir!” stammered Bliss. 

“The telegram I received just now was simply a con¬ 
firmation of some of the details brought out by Welchor’s 
papers you were clever enough to secure. I permitted 
him to send my voucher, feeling sure all would be squared 
before it reached its destination. The power behind him 
has, by the way, disavowed any official connection with 
the scoundrels who provided him money. He would never 
have been paid unless those same Orientals had been able 
to bleed their own country for double that amount.” 

“Which saves a deal of hard feeling,” interposed the 
Skipper. 

“You will be interested to know that when Joan and 
I—” 

Bliss caught his breath, but the Admiral pretended 
not to notice. 

“—reached Point Barrow I knew of the entire plot. 

268 



ZR WINS! 


Fearing complications Washington had decided not to 
attempt any transmitted instructions, even in code, but 
trusted solution of the matter to me. You can imagine 
my feelings when Welchor invited me to accompany him 
on an aerial survey of the new land.” 

“But Joan, sir?” 

The Admiral held up his hand. “It is not courtesy to 
interrupt your superior officer, Eppley,” rebuked the 
Admiral, with a look of mock severity over the rims of 
his glasses. 

“Ahem! Harumph!” coughed the Skipper. 

“At any rate I have sent full details to the State Depart¬ 
ment. I have set Congressional machinery in motion to 
make this land a national park at once. Its resources 
will of course be at the Government’s disposal. But all 
visitors will be controlled absolutely by proper authorities. 
Thus we shall not violate the peace and security of the 
Norse colony: nor shall we permit them to be exploited 
at the expense of their privacy. Their scientific develop¬ 
ments will remain federal secrets until such time as we 
can properly publish them to 1 the commercial world. In¬ 
cidentally, I have arranged with Hroar Holgrimson to 
take small parties of his people to visit the southern world 
at his discretion. In view of their approaching marriage 
your young friends Eric and Kristina are to be among 
the first to make the trip.” 

The Admiral paused and stroked his grizzled chin in 
a gesture of hesitation. 

“The matter of the Board meeting,” he resumed, “I 
mean your supposed divulgence of the ZR’s plans, I have 
also straightened out. You protected me. I squared you 
by describing to the Department my absurd trust in this 
villain Welchor.” 

Turning to Captain Devon he queried: “You have him 
safely confined?” 


269 



ZR WINS! 


“Yes, sir.” 

“You see, we did not wish to have the villagers sup¬ 
pose he was our prisoner. They might have put a wrong 
construction on the matter. But Devon and I secured 
his confession before he had time to stir up further riot. 
Also we threatened to tell the Norsemen, whose confi¬ 
dence we had gained, the truth about his villainy if he 
did not come aboard quietly. You saw how submissive 
he was, didn’t you?” 

Again the Admiral paused. With a bantering smile 
he scrutinized the eager face before him. Suddenly he 
said: 

“Oh, by the way, there’s some one in the mess room 
whom you really ought to be talking to instead of me. 
A young lunatic, I’d say, judging from certain peculiar 
behavior I have witnessed.” 

For the beat of a pulse Bliss stared at the Admiral. 
Then, with an exclamation of mixed hope and doubt, he 
sprang across the little pilot house deck and into the room 
beyond. 

Her face transfigured, Joan stood before him. 

“I’m forgiven?” blurted Bliss. 

“But I’m the only one who needs to be forgiven,” she 
replied in a low voice of ineffable sweetness. 

A pause, then, “Joan, I want you to see something.” 
Bliss led her to the little window and pointed to the 
ice pack far below. “Like that, Joan dear, life ahead 
seems now. White and clean and sparkling.” 

“But, oh, so cold, Bliss!” 

The hand that had somehow caught in his trembled 
slightly. He gripped it. 

“Cold?” he echoed with his little twisted smile, which, 
Joan knew, came only at times when some particular 
thought assailed him. The next instant she learned what 
the thought had been. For, without haste, yet so strongly 
270 



ZR WINS! 


and warmly that there could be no resisting, Bliss drew 
her to him, seeming to wrap his arms around and around 
her yielding body. But just as her lips met his the con¬ 
tact seemed to close another circuit. For, from some¬ 
where aft, broke the old familiar buzzing and crackling 
from which emerged the following historic announcement: 

. . - WZK WZK. We have just received official 
word of the great transpolar flight. Once more the Stars 
and Stripes have been planted at the Pole. Our Ameri¬ 
can dirigible, the ZR wins! ZR wins! . . 

C 1 ) 


THE END 






•» 















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